231 Belarusian-Language Schools to Go Shut by 2004 :: Charter'97 :: News

In accordance with the Ministry of education’s order, starting from this academic year 100 schools will be closed in Belarus. By the year 2004 131 more junior secondary schools will become defunct. Specialists say that this is yet another unyielding attack on the Belarusian-language educational system, for all these schools are Belarusian, reports Radio Svaboda.

Catastrophic decline in the amount of first-year schoolchildren and the shortage of resources for the secondary education development are called by the Ministry of education among the main root-causes for applying the new state program. This year 52 thousand less children will go into the first grade, whereas next year they will be even less than today. Overall, in three years time the authorities plan to close 231 secondary schools, all of them being Belarusian-language ones.

Moreover, over the past three years 101 schools were transformed from the Belarusian-language into Russian schools. Today only 27% of the total number of pupils attends Belarusian classes. This is taking place in light of the state program on widening the sphere of application of the Belarusian language, developed by the Ministry of education last year. Under this document, every district must have at least one Belarusian-language kindergarten and school.

However, the programs remain on paper alone, while the clampdown on the Belarusian educational system is a tragic reality, says head of the public association “Fellowship of the Belarusian School” Ales Lozka:

- If they really applied in practice what they documented in their program on the Belarusian language development, it would be a huge step forwards. But we feel resistance on their part and they don’t do everything as they said they would. Undoubtedly, the process negatively affects the Belarusian nation as a whole.