Photo credit: press service of the Ministry of Education of Russia / edu.gov.ru (CC BY 4.0)
They want to close schools for the Russian minority in Lithuania, BALTNEWS reports. According to the Minister of Education of the Baltic Republic Gintautas Jakstas, the department is considering how this can be done.
The minister noted that municipalities can make decisions on educational institutions that they themselves have established. However, the government intends to ensure that such steps can be taken at the state level.
The reason for the initiative was an incident in which two teenagers fired a pneumatic weapon at their classmate, disagreeing with him in their assessment of the Ukrainian conflict.
Previously, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports of Lithuania assured that there were no plans to reform Russian schools in the country, noting that they could not treat national minorities differently.
As of 2021, the share of the Russian-speaking population in Lithuania is about 5%. The population census two years ago revealed that 141,000 Russians live in the country. In 26 schools, instruction is conducted in Russian.
The Ministry of Education of Lithuania noted that more than 1,000 first-graders came to Russian schools this year, including citizens of Lithuania, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Russkiy Mir
