The quality of the study of the Russian language in the Caucasus in recent years has increased, the head of the Federal Agency for Nationalities, Igor Barinov, told Vestnik Kavkaza on the sidelines of the press conference dedicated to the International Mother Language Day.
In the first place, he noted qualitative changes in the knowledge of Russian language in Russia's North Caucasus. "There are developments in this issue, in particular, according to the recent exam results in the Caucasus regions. We often discuss it with my colleague, the head of the Federal Service for Supervision in Education, Sergey Kravtsov," he said, adding that the low level of teaching Russian prevented Caucasian youth from climbing the social ladder more actively.
"This problem has been very sharp in the 90s, which led to the fact that graduates from North Caucasian republics had very limited opportunities to obtain quality education," Igor Barinov reminded.
The North Caucasus Federal District is currently on the verge of radical change in this area. "The situation is changing, and I hope that the quality of teaching Russian language will change dramatically within two to three years," the head of the Federal Agency for Nationalities stressed.
Speaking of the South Caucasus countries, he drew attention to a certain lack of teaching Russian language. "There were processes in the North Caucasian republics similar to those we had. In particular, there is almost a whole generation of young people in Armenia who either speak Russian badly or do not speak at all," Igor Barinov pointed out.
"The Azerbaijani leadership paid attention to it before their neighbors. Now there is an increasing number of Russian schools, the quality of Russian language is changing for the better," the official said.
According to him, the situation in the neighboring countries with the knowledge of Russian language will be changed for the better. "People understand that Russia is a vast country, and a huge market, that we are neighbors and we have a chance to cooperate in all fields: cultural, social and economic. I hope that these processes will be further developed," the head of the Federal Agency for Nationalities concluded.
