The Daily Populous Thursday November 24th, 2022 night edition
Authored by lrt.lt and submitted by EriDxD

Latviaâs Ministry of Education plans to introduce one of the EUâs official languages as a second foreign language in all schools as of the 2026-2027 academic year. This means that Russian would no longer be taught in Latvian schools.

Under the new rules, Latvian schools would also be able to teach languages covered by separate intergovernmental agreements.

According to Latvian public broadcaster LSM, the ministry believes that such changes will increase the integration of the countryâs youth into European education and open up more job opportunities in the EU.

Lithuania also considers introducing similar measures, but it would take more than four years to implement, stressed Dainoras Lukas, a representative of the Lithuanian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport.

âThe Latviansâ intention to achieve this in four years is very optimistic. The issue of a shortage of German, French, or other EU language teachers exists both in Latvia and in Lithuania,â Lukas said.

âWeâre also looking at this issue, but we think that the transition period should be longer,â he added.

Alongside possible new rules of language teaching, young people should also be encouraged to choose language studies, according to Lukas.

âThis change is primarily related to the number of German and French teachers. We will try to encourage more students to study these languages,â he said.

Currently, there are no national guidelines on which foreign languages can be taught in schools in Latvia, which means that each educational institution decides individually which language classes to offer.

A survey conducted in 2021 found that almost half of Latvian schools have no other choice of a second foreign language except for Russian.

At the end of September, the Latvian parliament also voted in favour of the amendments that require all state schools and kindergartens in the country to transition to education only in Latvian by 2025.

Until now, members of the Russian minority in Latvia could attend special schools where certain subjects could be taught in Russian.

The Russian minority makes up about a third of the Latvian population.

In Lithuania, 67.9 percent of high school students choose Russian as their second foreign language.

AschAschAsch on November 23rd, 2022 at 20:02 UTC »

Will Lithuanians stop using Russian words for swearing though?

poopblaster83 on November 23rd, 2022 at 18:22 UTC »

Lithuanian here, let me explain it in simple terms.

Language schooling works like this here:

You have your mandatory Lithuanian classes, followed with mandatory English classes. At (I believe, been a while) 6th grade (12-13 y.o.) you are supposed to pick up a 3rd language. It is mostly a toss-up between Russian and German or if your school is posh enough, French followed up with really rarely Spanish.

Majority of the pupils take Russian because everyone takes Russian (herd mentality, you don't want to sit in class without your friends) and because smaller towns with smaller schools wouldn't even have a teacher of another language in the first place. Also kids are "slightly" motivated by their parents, because majority of them know Russian to a good degree of fluency, therefore can assist with homework and whatnot.

Russian is being selected not because young people are interested in learning Russian, its because there are no other alternatives that would be "logical" to a child. I myself nearly chosen Russian when I was growing up, solely because of the fact the majority of my friends/classmates took Russian.

Russian is largely useless in Lithuania for young people (everyone young speaks English who isn't a deadbeat). The only use for Russian is to speak to ethnic Russians, who surprise surprise, don't speak Lithuanian, especially if they are elderly. I had an elderly couple who lived in Lithuania for around 50 years as neighbours when I was growing up, they could BARELY scrape the equivalent of "Hello, how was your day" etc.

Russian being left in schools is purely a leftover rotting relic of the Soviet era. The root of the idea of abolishing this is as a subject isn't a "Fuck Russia" type of ordeal (although the war has given it a considereable boost). It's because, at the time we are living, it is becoming more and more redundant.

The only "use" right now (bear in mind, this will also grow more and more redundant) is talking to other people of post-soviet block. You could get by, by speaking Russian to older Poles, Estonians, Latvians etc. If you are young, you just speak English to them, and they will speak English back to you. Hell, even young ethnic Russians can speak English nowadays.

I am all for abolishing Russian as a state-mandated language. I'd rather have my kids have a basic understanding or a certain degree of fluency in French/Spanish/German, hell even Chinese, instead of Russian.

autotldr on November 23rd, 2022 at 16:30 UTC »

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 77%. (I'm a bot)

> Latvia's Ministry of Education plans to introduce one of the EU's official languages as a second foreign language in all schools as of the 2026-2027 academic year.

> Alongside possible new rules of language teaching, young people should also be encouraged to choose language studies, according to Lukas.

> Currently, there are no national guidelines on which foreign languages can be taught in schools in Latvia, which means that each educational institution decides individually which language classes to offer.

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