19.05.2017, Lithuania.
Parents and their children who attend two Russian-speaking schools in Vilnius held a protest near the Mayor’s Office against the reorganization of national minority schools on May 16 as RIA Novosti reported.
The Pushkin School cannot achieve the status of a secondary school for two years, which means that it cannot cover first to twelfth grades. Currently, the education is limited to ten grades.
The representative of the school’s trade union, Irina Lukashevich, explained that the teachers are qualified to teach children up to the twelfth grade.
Representatives of the Starogorodskaya School in Vilnius are trying to stop authorities from closing school. The official pretext for closing the school was that classes are understaffed (there are just over 200 children who attend the school). The Vilnius municipality is offering parents to transfer to a Russian-Polish school in a neighboring district. The city administration intends to hand over the building to a Lithuanian school.
The long-time policy of oppression of Russian-speaking citizens in the Baltic States has taken on massive proportions, and it is supported at the state level. In such a way, the Latvian State education quality service has taken away accreditation from the Innova Russian school in Riga. Officials justified this decision by claiming that the school’s administration and teachers were disloyal to the State. Education officials also made claims over the alleged low quality of education at the school.
The process of taking the Innova school’s accreditation began after the school’s founder and its graduates took part in the “Immortal Regiment” event on Victory Day, May 9.
* The original of the picture is by 3dman_eu, license CCo 1.0.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
