RAS 12 - JRL 6535
RUSSIA AND ITS NEIGHBORS: THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE IN THE NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES
9. RUSSIAN LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN THE NIS
SOURCE. Yana Strel'tsova, "Problema russkogo iazyka i obrazovaniia v rossiiskikh diasporakh v novom zarubezh'e" [The Problem of the Russian Language and Education in the Russian Diasporas in the New Abroad], pp. 86-98 in Moskovskii Tsentr Karnegi [Moscow Carnegie Center], Iazyk i etnicheskii konflikt [Language and Ethnic Conflict] (Moscow: Gendal'f, 2001).
The general trend has been a steady decline in Russian-language education at all levels. In the USSR in 1989 the proportion of school pupils receiving instruction in Russian was 39 percent. In 1996 the proportion for the post-Soviet region as a whole was down to 29 percent. Russian-language instruction is expected to stabilize around 15 percent within a few years, by which time it will be restricted in most states to ethnic Russians. Likely exceptions are Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, the constitutions of which give Russian equal status as a state language with the language of the indigenous nationality. (1)
Many Russian-language teachers have lost their jobs or left for Russia. At the same time there is a shortage of indigenous-language teachers and textbooks (although Moldovan schools receive all their books from Romania without payment). Declining standards, especially in the humanities, make it difficult for Russian graduates of schools in the NIS to study in higher education institutions in Russia.
The Russian government has sought to remedy this situation by negotiating inter-state agreements to establish Russian-language institutions of middle and higher education in the other post-Soviet states:
* In 1993 the Kyrgyz-Russian (Slavic) University was opened in Bishkek under joint control. A similar Tajik-Russian (Slavic) University was opened in Dushanbe in 1996, and a Russian-Armenian University in Yerevan in 1998. Analogous institutions are planned for Georgia and Moldova.
* In 1994 a Baltic-Russian Institute was opened in Riga (Latvia), with a branch in Tallinn (Estonia). Estonia also has a private Russian-language university and a Russian-language grammar school (gimnazia) in Tallinn.
* In 1995 a branch of Omsk State University was opened in Tashkent (Uzbekistan) and a branch of Moscow State University in Baku (Azerbaijan).
* It is planned to establish a Russian-Turkmen technical college in Ashkhabad.
However, the impact of these institutions depends on what funds the Russian government allocates to them. This factor explains why, for example, 70 percent of students at the Tajik-Russian (Slavic) University are Russian-speaking but most of the students at the Kyrgyz-Russian (Slavic) University are Kyrgyz.
Russian-language education in some countries may be preserved by granting the Russian minority cultural autonomy. As an example the author mentions Latvia, the first state in the former USSR to create an extra-territorial self-governing structure for its Russian minority, which is represented in governmental bodies and has responsibility for culture, language, education, and religion. (2)
Language is the most common problem confronting ethnic Russians seeking entry to higher education in the NIS, but it is not the only problem. In some states it is not even the main problem. For example, in higher education institutions in Kazakhstan ethnic Russians make up only some 10 percent of the student body despite a formal provision for the equal division of student cohorts into Kazakh-language and Russian-language teaching groups. Not only all students in the Kazakh-language groups but also 80 percent of students in the Russian-language groups are ethnic Kazakhs. Thus the Russian-language groups cater primarily to the large population of urban Russian-speaking Kazakhs. The problem here is not language but direct ethnic discrimination.
NOTES
(1) Russian has had equal status in Belarus since 1994, in Kazakhstan since 1995, and in Kyrgyzstan since May 2000.
(2) Such extra-territorial autonomy has the advantage of not being perceived as a threat to the territorial integrity of the state. In any case, territorial autonomy for Russians in Latvia is not feasible because (in contrast to Estonia) they are not concentrated in particular areas of the country. For a discussion of analogous extra-territorial cultural autonomies for ethnic minorities in Russia see RAS No. 8 item 6.
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