Transformation of settlements pattern and school network in rural areas of the Republic of Tatarstan

Period 1970–2019 characterized by a decrease in the number of rural populations of the Republic of Tatarstan by 1.7 times with an increase in the urban population by 1.9 times. Depopulation processes in the rural periphery led to the transformation of settlement through changes in the structure of the network of rural settlements. Main trends: reduction in the total number of rural settlements; rapid polarization, i.e., an increase in the relative share and absolute number of the smallest rural settlements. This process is largely due to the loss of population by small and medium-sized rural settlements. There was a process of “flowing” of rural settlements from one category in terms of numbers to another, lower in rank. At this stage, only the number of large villages with a population of more than 1 thousand people is stable. Since the beginning of the 2000s. In Russia, the Program for Optimizing the Network of Educational Institutions began to be implemented. In rural areas of the Republic of Tatarstan, the most intensive restructuring of the school network has been carried out since 2008, and by 2015 the number of schools was approximately 46% of their number in the 2001/02 academic year. After 2015, there has been a noticeable slowdown in the network optimization process, with only a slight negative trend. The dominant factor established - the level of occupancy of students in an educational organization when deciding on its reorganization or liquidation provides a rationale for making a forecast for the further course of the transformation of the school network. If we take the occupancy rates of rural schools as conditional criteria, then as of today, about 57% of secondary and 53% of basic educational organizations do not enroll the required number of students.