The capital of the Urals failed to follow the order of President Vladimir Putin to transfer schools to a single-shift model. New schools are needed to make this happen. There is a catastrophic shortage of new schools in Ekaterinburg. Over the past 10 years, only 5 schools have been built. Therefore, the schools today are 2-2.5 times overcrowded. This happens despite the fact that Ekaterinburg spends 22 billion roubles on education annually. This is half of the city budget. These are the largest expenses on education among other Russian cities with a population of over one million.
Ekaterina Sibirtseva, Head of the Department of Education, Administration of Ekaterinburg: "I am not an oracle to say whether it will be done or not. But we did everything possible. There is a sub-item on the transfer to the one shift system in the elementary school by 2021. On a city-wide scale, we really cannot do this".