KALUGA, November 27 (RIA Novosti) - Brighton College, a leading British public school, plans to establish a branch in Borovsk, Kaluga Region, fifty miles south of Moscow, to take in first boarding school pupils in 2009. High quality British-style education has long become an attraction for wealthy Russians. Soon they will have an opportunity to give their children the same standard of education at home, The Times reports.
"Parents have been sending their children to Europe, but they don't like it because when they come over, they stay. They believe that Russia is losing its children. But this way they hope to keep the same value system and the children," Richard Cairns, Brighton College headmaster, says.
The project is the brainchild of Mikhail Orloff, a businessman descended from one of the best-known Russian aristocratic families. He hopes the school will blend the best of English education with Russia's culture and history.
The plan has been developed by Lord Skidelsky, an economist of Russian origin, who chairs the Brighton College board of governors. He will raise the funds - around 19 million pounds, on preliminary estimations.
Richard Niblett, the Brighton College director of music, has been in Moscow since September for feasibility studies and construction fund raising.
"The concept is to draw on the best of both education systems - the logic of science and maths, which Russian schools excel at, and the house-style system and arts of a British public school," he says.
Borovsk is a small town, so school geography will repeat that of British public schools to take children away from polluted cities. A weekly boarding school, it is expected to teach 400 boys and girls on European-style curricula, with tuition in English. The best pupils will be sent to Brighton College to prepare for their A levels.
The Russian school will charge 10,350 pounds a year for weekly boarders, as against 16,000 in Brighton College.
Russia presently has several good Western-style private day schools, such as the Anglo-American and the British International. The Borovsk will be Russia's first boarding school linked to a prestigious school in Britain.
