In Astrakhan, teachers of the centre of additional education are on hunger strike

Eleven teachers of the Astrakhan regional state educational establishment of additional education "Centre of Children's Scientific and Technical Creativity" have gone to a hunger strike. They protest against possible closure of free-of-charge circles for Astrakhan teenagers.

According to the teachers, Governor Alexander Zhilkin and Regional Minister of Education Vitaly Gutman made a decision to link their Centre to the Centre of Children's and Youth's Aesthetic Education headed by Denis Boyarsky.

The teachers believe that their technical circles will be unwanted at the Boyarsky's Centre, and give an example that in 2009 the Club of Young Seamen and the Club of Young Tourists were incorporated into the to the Centre of Children's and Youth's Aesthetic Education and soon stopped their work. Their premises were given into rent to non-educational establishments.

The teachers-hunger-strikers continue their work with children and call residents of Astrakhan to support them and to come to the Centre, as the "Kasparov.Ru" writes. The action was supported by Alexander Kamanin, leader of the faction "Spravedlivaya Rossiya" in the Astrakhan Regional Duma, the Youth Movement "Reference Point" and the editor-in-chief of the Astrakhan-based weekly "Fact and Compromise", as the RICA "New Region" reports.

In reply to the statements of hunger-strikers, the Regional Ministry of Education puts forward its reasons: firstly, sometimes establishments of additional education duplicate each other; secondly, their material-and-technical base quite often is in pitiable condition; and thirdly, some establishments offer out-of-date services, which are uninteresting for children. This is stated in the press release disseminated by the authorities after the teachers had gone to their hunger strike. The unification of establishments is named there as "concentration of profile assets with the aim to improve quality," the "Novaya Gazeta" writes.