Education in Russia: News

Interesting statistics:

https://t.me/rian_ru/213732

In the Zaporozhye region, about 46% of children decided to study Ukrainian as their native language, they will be provided with new textbooks, local authorities said. In total, on September 1, 172 schools will open in the region, the number of students will exceed 40 thousand - more by 2 thousand than last year. Cadet classes will open in a number of schools.

A fairly high proportion.

Of course Zaporozhie region (and Kherson region) was always Ukrainian majority, but traditionally Russian-speaking at the same time too; definitely in the cities at any rate; in the countryside there is a mix of dialects.

caveat emptor wrote:Interesting statistics:

https://t.me/rian_ru/213732

In the Zaporozhye region, about 46% of children decided to study Ukrainian as their native language, they will be provided with new textbooks, local authorities said.  In total, on September 1, 172 schools will open in the region, the number of students will exceed 40 thousand - more by 2 thousand than last year.  Cadet classes will open in a number of schools.

At least they have a choice.

franco wrote:

caveat emptor wrote:Interesting statistics:

https://t.me/rian_ru/213732

In the Zaporozhye region, about 46% of children decided to study Ukrainian as their native language, they will be provided with new textbooks, local authorities said.  In total, on September 1, 172 schools will open in the region, the number of students will exceed 40 thousand - more by 2 thousand than last year.  Cadet classes will open in a number of schools.

At least they have a choice.

This is about their native language being taught to them as a subject in school.

But I presume the schools are all Russian-language schools, which means the rest of the subjects will be taught in Russian

I'm not sure how many Ukrainian-language schools are open. In the Crimea they were eventually all closed, at least state-funded ones. Despite the fact that demand for them probably exists there in some quantity.

In the Soviet Union, every single school provided the local population with native language education while Russian was official.
So I guess the situation is just same here.

ALAMO wrote:In the Soviet Union, every single school provided the local population with native language education while Russian was official.
So I guess the situation is just same here.

Nope, for most kids native language learning has been relegated to just a few hours of lessons per week. Everything else is in Russian. There are still some non-Russian language schools but it's a far lesser proportion of the total compared to the Soviet era or even the 2000s.

Good old Russification. Because Russia is still ruled by backwards idiots from the 19th century.

Anything that threatens national unity is a problem and tolerating or promoting it needs a proper justification.

"Ukrainian" is not a language in the first place, anymore than "Bavarian" is a language...these are local dialects of Russian/German respectively...that they even have "Ukrainian" as a subject at all is pretty laughable and not justified at all.

In Russia, over the past 4.5 years, conditions have been improved for 1.5 million schoolchildren and more than 900 new schools have been built. This was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, September 1.

“In general, over the past 4.5 years, as a result of the implementation of the state program “Development of Education”, learning conditions have been improved for more than 1.5 million schoolchildren, including the construction of more than 900 new schools, in which more than 540 thousand additional places have been created,” — said the Russian leader at the opening ceremony of new schools in the regions.

Since 2022, almost 2.5 thousand school buildings have been overhauled, in which a total of 1 million schoolchildren study. In addition, by the end of 2024, a radical renovation of more than 1.5 thousand more general education facilities is planned, Putin said, noting that most of them are located in rural areas.

“Good results have been achieved under the program for the construction of kindergartens and nurseries. It was possible to achieve almost one hundred percent accessibility of preschool education - 99%," the President of Russia added.

In addition, on September 1, Putin took part in the opening of new schools in the regions of Russia. In particular, new educational institutions appeared in Mariupol, Novgorod region, Dagestan, Rostov-on-Don. Together with the Russian leader, the Minister of Education of the Russian Federation Sergey Kravtsov took part in the event.

https://iz-ru.translate.goog/1567644/2023-09-01/putin-soobshchil-o-stroitelstve-bolee-900-shkol-za-poslednie-45-goda?main_click&_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

FP is right. Whole curriculum is done in Russian, except native language that can be Ukrainian.

And speaking about education ...





The biggest school in Russia just opened in Voronezh. close to 2900 students and 220 teachers.

flamming_python wrote:

Nope, for most kids native language learning has been relegated to just a few hours of lessons per week. Everything else is in Russian. There are still some non-Russian language schools but it's a far lesser proportion of the total compared to the Soviet era or even the 2000s.

Good old Russification. Because Russia is still ruled by backwards idiots from the 19th century.

And that's exactly what I have said. A native language education. Not education carried in a native language.

When someone will end finally this atrocity! Poor kids being thrown into these concentration camps, and taught all that nasty things like extended biology, chemistry and physisc ...

https://t.me/c/1638135777/19848

Russkie monsters!!!! What next, an obligatory holiday at Artek? How dare they!?

I guess Mariupol should be considered Russia in future discourse. Big, newly built school opened there:


And the other Mariupol schools opened as well, of course, as it's September 1st, the traditional opening day. Many were renovated and thoroughly modernized by Russia.

ALAMO wrote:And speaking about education ...





The biggest school in Russia just opened in Voronezh. close to 2900 students and 220 teachers.

flamming_python wrote:

Nope, for most kids native language learning has been relegated to just a few hours of lessons per week. Everything else is in Russian. There are still some non-Russian language schools but it's a far lesser proportion of the total compared to the Soviet era or even the 2000s.

Good old Russification. Because Russia is still ruled by backwards idiots from the 19th century.

And that's exactly what I have said. A native language education. Not education carried in a native language.

When someone will end finally this atrocity! Poor kids being thrown into these concentration camps, and taught all that nasty things like extended biology, chemistry and physisc ...

https://t.me/c/1638135777/19848

Russkie monsters!!!! What next, an obligatory holiday at Artek? How dare they!?

Very few countries with a load of recognized minority languages have state provision for education 100% in these lingos. The general rule is that access to some minority language education is legally mandated, as well as access to government services etc in these languages, but some 100% thing has to be a local initiative, that may or may not recieve state subsidizes.

The more shithole masquerading for a country, the more issues minorities will face.
Here there are actually two major local minority languages, Kashebian and Silesian.
In both cases, parents can demand the organization of language lessons at local schools.
And it starts to be a school problem, as they are granted with that privilege.
A while ago, one more language joined, Tatar.
The case with Tatar is that it was already lost in Poland back in the XVI century.
A few years ago, language was assigned as Commonwealth language heritage, and it got special attention with money and efforts allocated to return it back.
But as we speak about a very small community, the language is being taught not at schools, but at external courses.

Countries lacking any other serious roots and heritage will fight the minorities with their culture. Serious countries will adore them, as a part of all national pride.

Being a colonial country for a long time local Maori were discouraged from speaking Maori in schools, but these days they are promoting it everywhere.

Personally I think if I was to learn a language it would be a language that was actually useful.

There are no Maori who can't speak English... there are some that choose not to speak English but none that only speak Maori.

It was funny because they wanted all the schools to teach Maori but found there were not enough people who could speak Maori to teach it properly.

If I was learning a language I would learn something useful like Chinese because there are lots of people who speak Chinese that don't speak English, or I would learn to speak Russian to be able to read more easily about the history of their weapons and equipment and make communicating online easier.

But it has taken decades to learn English and that was such an effort I find motivation to be the problem.

Interesting, and kind of similar to Tatar here.
As it physically and voluntarily ceased to exist a few ages ago, it is extremely hard to reestablish even a teaching basis.
Polish Tatars are not all Muslims, a lot of them converted to Catholics ages ago. There are no strong ties with the other Tatar enclaves whatsoever. Our Tatars know perfectly well, that what they can do now, won't have much in common with an old Tatar their ancestors had been using four ages ago. What they can do, is using Russian provided books and language, in general. Russian Tatar language is obviously influenced by the Russian itself, so that starts to be politics already, you know

The Polish Tatars are basically the descendants of those Volga Tatars who accepted service to the Polish Commonwealth in any case. Their language is the same as the one spoken by the Tatars in Russia, just with some diversion over the previous 2-3 centuries. It can't hurt them to bring in some textbooks from Tatarstan.

Where it starts to get weird is for example using Finnish textbooks in Karelia, or learning the Finnish language in schools in place of Karelian which is popular there. Which is understandable, as the Finnish language actually has a use today, but still these are languages which diverged over 1000 years ago technically.

https://www.rt.com/russia/582244-russian-schools-chinese-putin/

Putin backs teaching Chinese in Russian schools

The Russian president spoke at an event marking the start of a new academic year

Russia should expand the study of Chinese and other Asian languages inn the country's education institutions, given the continent’s growth in importance to world affairs, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

The president’s adviser for science and culture, Andrey Fursenko, said earlier this week that Russian universities should gradually introduce Chinese language courses in order to stay abreast of scientific developments.

“Do we want to keep pace with science?” Fursenko asked, noting that 30% of all scientific papers were in Chinese at this point.

Fursenko noted that the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MFTI) recently attempted to introduce Chinese as the second mandatory foreign language, but ran into “fierce opposition” from the students.

Putin suggested Swahili not long ago too

Hey why not. It's the future.

flamming_python wrote:Nope, for most kids native language learning has been relegated to just a few hours of lessons per week. Everything else is in Russian.

In several schools across Siberia, I have noticed that English is taught as a second language.

English taught in Russia is of very high standard. Despite the accent Russians who speak English do that with very little grammatical error. This is not the case even in UK for instance leave alone other EU states.

Regarding Russians learning to speak Chinese... they are a neighbour and it would make sense to be able to communicate with the billion people who live next door...

Learning English for Russians would make sense so they understand the insults they get from the west directly and no through translation so they understand the west hates them... that would be important too.

Equally important in learning English is to understand that everyone in the West doesn't hate them. That it's just the regimes and their propaganda arms and all the lemmings under the sway of such.. which is a lot of vocal unthinking people but hardly everyone.

Fortunately the present circumstances haven't dented the popularity of English.
Although I do hope that other languages such as Chinese, Spanish, Farsi and Hindi grow in popularity too

English is still the most common language used in the majority of international commercial, culture and scientific activities and therefore proficiency in English is essential.

At the end of the day it is language is just a tool to further our understanding of the world and our career. The ruling class and imperialistic power attempt to use it as a way to impose their ideas but we will also use it to fight for our legitimate rights.

My experience with English in Russia has been mixed. In some circles people spoke it rather effortlessly, even the accents weren't that "Russian" but I was still forced to use my so-so Russian (it's passable but I make constant grammatical mistakes and that's a tad embarassing, Slavic cases etc are no joke) on occasion even in Moscow and St. Pete, even with people significantly younger than myself.

That kind of surprised me. But I also got the impression that much like myself and Russian, lots of people were probably more proficient in English than they let on, they were just afraid of making mistakes.

Way out in the outback, English was pretty much non-existent though. Met a German speaking lady in one of the far-flung villages I hung out in, but that was it.

As for minority languages in education, I just can't decide on it. On the one hand, they have a cultural and historical value and to preserve them, younger generations need it. On the other, I see where people are coming from when they echo what David Mitchell says here regarding tiny and frankly, quite useless lingos:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfb7nr

English is still the most common language used in the majority of international commercial, culture and scientific activities and therefore proficiency in English is essential.

So Hollywood movies are true where when foreigners are alone they stop speaking their native language and start speaking English?

On the one hand, they have a cultural and historical value and to preserve them, younger generations need it.

You can preserve a language without forcing children to learn it.

Here in New Zealand during the 1980s and 1990s they started reviving the language with funding and awareness... there was a Maori News programme in which the news was read out by an obviously Maori person in Maori with English subtitles.

The programme mentioned international news but then focused mainly on local content and issues related to maori groups.

Their problem was that there were a lot of words missing from their vocabulary and so what they often did was make up words from their letter set.

Now some people objected but all languages are made up anyway.

As David Mitchell points out, language is about communication so reviving dead languages that let you speak to a small handful of other people who already speak another language you already speak is a bit of a waste of government time and money.

He mentioned speaking Hindu, but speaking another language that would be useful to you makes rather more sense.

Computer translation performance is improving all the time and constant work on such things will only make them better.