Upbringing as an Element of Public Law Obligations in Russia

Abstract

The status of education in the Russian Federation is constitutionally fixed as a socially significant benefit, with upbringing recognized as an integral part of the educational process. At the same time, there is a contradiction between the civil law form of an education agreement and its actual public law content. In this regard, the authors set out to provide a scientific justification for the need to transform the education agreement into a public legal form, unified at the federal level, taking into account the integrative unity of education and upbringing, as well as overcoming the dissonance between the category of “educational service” used in legislation and the real nature of the educational process. The paper shows that the modern legal regulation of educational relations retains a contradictory character, which is manifested in the formal use of civil law structures (in particular, service contracts) in respect to public law relations. The authors’ concept of a public law agreement on education is substantiated, which is mandatory for signing regardless of the form and method of financing, with a clear inclusion of the educational component into the subject of the agreement. The authors propose a normative consolidation of this form in the Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation” as a tool to ensure the principles of equality, legal certainty, and effective public control in the field of education.