The dropping of regional components from school curricula has triggered a heated public debate.
A mother of a large Ufa family complains to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin about the Republic's Law On Education
Optional subject
"I had a dream..." begins a letter to Rossiiskaya Gazeta from Galina Luchkina, a mother of three children living in Ufa.
"I am walking down Lenin Street and suddenly Alexander Pushkin comes up to me and asks me, ‘Bashkortsa belyasenme?' (‘Do you speak Bashkir?'). I was so taken aback that I forgot all the foreign words I ever knew. I recalled that I had studied German in school, and so I strained my memory and replied: Ich bin Russische. I woke up in a cold sweat. ‘Now I understand why you should learn Bashkir'."
Writing on behalf of a group of parents Galina Luchkina wondered why children needed to know Bashkir, which they did not want to learn.
"I am still wrestling with the dilemma that the deputies of the National Assembly, the Kurultai of the Republic of Bashkortostan, set in front of us by making the study of the Bashkir language mandatory for the of all nationalities in the Republic's schools; incidentally, Bashkirs are only the third largest ethnic group in our region, and there are normally no more than five Bashkirs in a typical school class in Ufa," the letter reads.
Galina called the Education Ministry of the Republic of Bashkortostan:
"Please, what should I tell my son if he refuses to learn the Bashkir language?"
"You live on the territory of Bashkortostan."
"Yes. So what?"
"Everyone needs to know the language of the people on whose territory they live."
"What for?"
"What do you mean by ‘what for?' The Bashkirs are the indigenous people. Everybody should seek to preserve their language. This is national policy."
"But wouldn't it be more logical if it were left to the Bashkirs themselves to preserve their language, and not the Russians and Tatars? If you pursue that line of reasoning, all Americans should learn the language of the Native Americans."
The letter, written on behalf of the parents of Ufa schoolchildren, was addressed to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: "Surely you would agree that it would make more sense to make the study of the Bashkir language optional. In ordinary schools, it should be optional and not mandatory."
Native and non-native options
The public debate in the region on the study of the Bashkir language and culture in schools has been going on for two years. After amendments were introduced to the Law On Education by the National Assembly, the Kurultai of the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Education Ministry introduced this subject in the curriculum and has been successfully fighting off critical attacks from opponents citing federal and republican legislation. Arguments that the majority of the Republic's population was not Bashkir, did not know Bashkir, and was not obliged to learn it, were dismissed as untenable.
As a result, schoolchildren currently are required to study Russian, Bashkir, and another foreign language of their choice. They may learn other languages, but that is not mandatory and not universal. For example, if a school is located in an Udmurtian enclave, the Udmurtian language may be a mandatory or optional subject. Children can be exposed to their native language and culture with the help of national culture centers, some of which run education programmes.
No problem.
Under Federal Law No.309 On Introducing Amendments to some Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation as Regards the Change of the Concept and Structure of the State Educational Standard, the regional component that included the language, culture, and history of the region as a whole and its indigenous people will be dropped from the school curriculum beginning next year.
Nevertheless, the Bashkir language, which schoolchildren in the Republic study for two hours a week, will remain, only now it may be part of not the regional, but of the school component or, like the other languages of the peoples of the Republic, may be taught as an optional discipline. In both cases the parents and the school headmasters have the final say.
At present, the national republics are in support of the preservation of the former educational standard: 75% of the school curriculum is the federal component, 10-15% is the regional component, and the remaining school hours are used by the school administration depending on its specialization. That vision is shared by the governments of Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, and the other republics that fear Russia's federated structure would melt away together with the regional standard in the "melting pot" of integration. An issue that is seen in Moscow as purely technical and administrative is politicized in the national republics.
VERBATIM
Isaak Kalina, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation: "The enlarged standard being worked out at the federal level takes into account all the positive achievements made in the previous years in implementing the national-regional component. The standard allows the republics to implement the laws on languages. I would like to see the study of the history and culture of the area, the native region, similarly sealed in legislation in all the Russian regions."
Numbers
Working in the Republic's schools are 5125 Bashkir language teachers.
According to the Education Ministry of the Republic of Bashkortostan, all pupils from year 1 to year 11 study the Bashkir language as the official language for two hours a week.
Bashkortostan
Alexei Petrov