No buildings, no salaries, no teachers. Why the concession school project failed

Elena Petrova, Tatyana Sviridova

The history of the construction of six schools in Novosibirsk under a concession with a private company began in 2021 and ended ingloriously in 2025. The idea was beautiful - to introduce 5,575 educational places in new microdistricts in a year and a half with the help of investors.

"The overall project implementation period is 15 years. This is construction - a year and a half and operation - 13.5 years. The built schools will be transferred to regional ownership. Until the completion of payment under the concession agreement, the school buildings will be under the operational management of the concessionaire," the Minister of Education of Novosibirsk advertised the project four years ago.

For the capital of Siberia, new schools are an urgent need. It was already clear four years ago that the new educational institutions opened in 2019–2021 would not be enough. According to the forecast, 376 thousand schoolchildren will study in school in 2025. However, this figure was reached a year earlier, which means that in 2025, more than 400 thousand people will go to school. Already, a third of schools work in two shifts.

Now the regional center will be short of even more places, including those same 5,575 in six unbuilt schools.

According to the local prosecutor's office, the concessionaire has been under arrest since 2024. His name has not been released. Local media have found out that the agreement was signed by OOO "Tridtsa pyataya koncessionnaya kompaniya "Prosveshchenie", which is owned by a Moscow OOO, which is owned by two other Moscow companies.

The construction was also not carried out by those who signed the contract, but by completely different construction companies that hired local workers. It is surprising that this "matryoshka" did not catch the eye of local officials for a long time.

According to the plan, the total investment amounted to 8 billion 380 million, of which 1%, or 107 million, was the region's money, 2.5 billion, or 31%, was the federal budget, and 5 billion 716 million were private investments. The investor's own capital was small - only 438 million rubles.

The first voices to terminate the contract began to be heard only in 2024. By that time, the damage amounted to 3.1 billion rubles, and the readiness of six objects was from 14 to 22%.

All the buildings were in various stages of completion and could not be completed or rebuilt. The State Construction Supervision Authority of the Novosibirsk Region counted about a dozen violations - from an improperly constructed foundation to poor-quality concrete and reinforcement for the floors.

In May, the regional administration signed a new contract - for the demolition of unfinished schools. The regional Ministry of Construction is not despondent and is planning to build new schools - at the expense of the budget and with new contractors.

— Estimates and construction deadlines have been discussed with potential tender participants and contractors in advance. There is a need to adjust the design solutions that were laid down by the previous contractor, — said Deputy Governor Roman Telenchinov.

The following organizations are required to build other schools by 2026.

The State Duma Education Committee takes a relaxed view of the situation with concession schools. Deputy Anatoly Wasserman explained it to Novye Izvestia as follows:

— If everything is more or less in order, the committee does not interfere very much simply because there are always many reasons for solving problems. Therefore, precisely because there have been no particular problems in this concession program so far, we do not monitor it very much, we proceed from the fact that, for the most part, everything is in order, since no one contacts us.

— Is there a chance that as a result of the implementation of the concession program, a sufficient number of schools will be built so that children do not have to study in two or three shifts?

“If there had been no such chance, we would not have started this program, and we certainly would not have encouraged it.”

Apparently, legislators are really far from implementing projects, because with concession schools, not everything is as wonderful as it seems from Okhotny Ryad.

Irina Abankina, a professor at the Institute of Education at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, told Novye Izvestia that only Moscow can afford the concession in today’s conditions:

— In total, 25 schools were going to be built. These were supposed to be flagship schools. There is one school in Nizhny Novgorod, and it is functioning. A quarter is being torn down now in Novosibirsk, and the rest have not even been started. Other projects were proposed. Governor's schools were going on in parallel. In Krasnodar, there is a governor's school, when the region invests significant amounts so that together with the investor, and a concession agreement is not necessary, something like that would work.

In Nizhny, the project took a long time to agree on and was developed. Building quickly and efficiently is, after all, Moscow's capability, says the professor. And such a school does exist - the 109th, better known as the Yamburg school.

— School No. 109 is listed separately in Moscow, so what they built for them in Moscow and what they did for Yamburg cannot be called a widely replicated version that is widespread, says Irina Abankina.

Director Evgeny Yamburg has been building “his school” for 50 years. All these decades, the construction has been carried out according to the principle “I molded it from what was there,” says the teacher. But this time, everything was different. They started digging the pit in 2022, and in September 2025, classes will begin at the branch of School No. 109 in New Moscow, in Prokshino. Half of the money is contributed by the Moscow mayor’s office, and the other half by the construction company. The project was done together with the teaching staff. The construction time was record-breaking, but without any botched work. Evgeny Yamburg is already proud of his branch:

— Our new school will have huge, amphitheater-style halls for 500 or 300 people. It was just my dream. Our old school has a 250-seat hall, it’s not always enough, it doesn’t fit everyone. I think such a school should become a cultural center. Look, Prokshino is still quite far from the center. But I have an agreement. There is a wonderful director, Mikhail Levitin. I also did a musical, we became friends. They can give performances on my stage, we have already agreed. I don’t have to charge rent, because it will be a master class for my actors. Consider what benefit they get, it’s not just making money for the sake of making money, but parents and children will watch. These are elite performances, not just dances and songs, this is so profound!

However, Evgeny Yamburg does not know how the school can earn money. The Moscow mayor's office does it for him. Professor Abankina also strongly doubts that anyone can earn money from the school.

The idea of ​​public-private partnership in the construction of social infrastructure emerged in the 2010s. Kindergartens have proven themselves well.

— In dozens of regions, this worked for preschoolers. This includes Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Sverdlovsk Oblast, and St. Petersburg. Even in Cherepovets, kindergartens were introduced, but a kindergarten is a kindergarten. The need was greater, and, obviously, parental fees, and the obligations of the regions, — says Professor Abankina.

The situation with schools is much more complicated. It is profitable for a concessionaire to build only very large schools with very broad opportunities for additional education. It becomes profitable only if a school is built for 750 places or more. It is obvious that schools in small towns and rural areas are already falling out of investors' field of vision. But, even if new educational institutions are built in new microdistricts, many parents are not ready to pay a lot for courses and clubs.

It would be possible to set up refresher courses and internships, but there is high competition in this market. Schools still need to obtain a license and create infrastructure, while in universities and specialized institutes everything has been working for a long time.

Regional budgets could return the money invested by construction companies, but this would take decades. There remains one reason why private money would flow into education.

— In our reality, the investor receives more social dividends, profit from socially oriented business, partnership of regions and significant social relations than he can directly consider it as a purely business project. As a business project, it does not make sense, the return is long, more than 25 years, and there are many pitfalls, — explains Irina Abankina.

However, domestic construction companies do not have such a planning horizon. Well, who will wait 25 years for a refund? Firms providing services to the authorities count on other privileges, which they apparently receive, but without noise and dust in the press.

Russia is currently in a unique situation. The north of the country is losing population, while in the south it is the other way around, a construction boom and, as a result, a lack of social structure. Municipalities, which organize school education, act according to the situation, says Irina Abankina:

— Municipalities have the right to organize shifts, because the regions of the North Caucasus are also experiencing difficulties. In Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia are experiencing a very serious deficit. They are introducing three shifts, which formally do not exist.

Schools in the south of the country are overcrowded and work like a conveyor belt. The North Caucasus republics have a high birth rate and the population is growing. In addition, there have always been a shortage of schools there. Currently, the shortage of places in schools is at least 16%, and the lag was very serious in the south of Russia.

In the north and east of the country there is another problem. Here the reconstruction of school buildings is urgently needed, the professor describes the depressing picture:

— We still have schools with toilets outside. And if something is installed inside the school, these are engineering systems that cannot withstand the load and cannot be used by all schoolchildren. There are locks on the toilets. Plus, all these temperature fluctuations do not allow either the Irkutsk Region or Transbaikalia to switch to toilets inside schools. There are no engineering communications there.

Budgets at all levels are overstrained, says the researcher, and accounts payable exist everywhere, including in Moscow. Commercial loans have long been replaced by budget loans, but they also have interest and must be paid.

— The regions are simply torn between the tasks of capital construction, erection of buildings and at the same time solving current problems. We see how difficult the situation is with personnel, with payment in each region.

It turns out that regional authorities now have no time for flagship projects or concessions.