UNESCO needs a public estimation of the Latvian and Ukrainian authorities' actions that restrict the national minorities access to education in their native language. Russia's permanent representative Alexander Kuznetsov announced this at the regular session of the Executive Board of the international organization, Sputnik news agency reports.
He stressed that Riga and Kiev created a situation that could lead to a sharp aggravation of inter-ethnic tensions in these countries.
According to the Russian diplomat, UNESCO needs to take a more active position when its regulations are grossly violated. After all, both Latvia and Ukraine supported the UNESCO convention against discrimination in the educational sphere.
As Russkiy Mir reported, at the beginning of April despite all the protests from the Russian diaspora, Latvia amended the law which excludes education in Russian in schools. Russian compatriots held numerous rallies, trying to draw the authorities attention to the problem of Russian schools and to the fact that the new law requires improvements.
A new Ukrainian education law practically prohibits teaching in any other language but Ukrainian. According to the document, children will be able to study in the languages of national minorities including Russian only in elementary school. From the fifth year all school subjects will be taught exclusively in Ukrainian. This rule will last until 2020. Then Russian and other languages will be eliminated from the curriculum.
Russkiy Mir
