Representatives of national minorities in Crimea do not have any problems with teaching children in national language, Ekaterina Vinnik, an analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza news agency said today on air of the National Question program on Vesti. FM.
The National Question is a weekly program on Vesti.FM, during which the hosts, Georgy Saralidze, Marat Safarov and Armen Gasparyan, discuss various aspects of national relations, primarily in Russia. Today's program was dedicated to the problems of national schools, their history and current state.
According to the expert, national schools in Crimea work alongside with general secondary schools, where the main language is Russian. "First and foremost, of course, this is due to the fact that representatives of different nationalities live on the peninsula. In addition, it should be mentioned that Crimean-Tatar and Ukrainian languages, along with Russian, are the official languages.Therefore, the representatives of these nationalities have not only the opportunity, but also the right established by the law to receive education in their native language," she stressed.
The percentage of the number of national schools and classes compared to the schools, where education is in Russian reflects roughly the overall percentage of the inhabitants of the peninsula, Ekaterina Vinnik told. "There are 550 educational institutions in Crimea, 15 of them are Crimean Tatar and one Ukrainian. In addition, the classes, where the teaching is in the national language, are created in the general education schools. In 2016-2017 academic year, for example, the number of classes with Crimean -Tatar language increased compared to the previous year and amounted to 32, this in addition to the national schools, " the analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza explained.
There is rather an opposite trend with education in Ukrainian. "More and more families who define themselves as Ukrainians prefer their children to receive education in Russian, and accordingly, their native language, Ukrainian, is chosen as an elective. Today, in addition to the Ukrainian school, where 132 students are studying, there are 12 Russian schools with 19 Ukrainian-language classes, " she clarified.
"Speaking about location, the Tatar schools are mainly located in places of compact living of the Crimean Tatar population, and classes with the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar language are created in general education institutions with Russian regardless of the factor of population distribution," the expert stressed.
"In other words, all the conditions for the development of the national education have been created on the peninsula. It is important to note that the issue of education in national language is given enough attention in Crimea, so representatives of national minorities do not have problems with choosing language for studying for their children," Ekaterina Vinnik concluded.
