Migrants may be required to teach their children Russian even before school?
The Council for Civil Society and Human Rights (CCHS) has advocated that all children entering Russian schools should know the Russian language. This seems logical as it is quite challenging to imagine the educational process with children who do not understand the teacher. However, such cases are not uncommon. To address this issue, legislative changes are necessary.
Valery Fadeev, the head of the CCHS, outlined views on the presence of non-Russian-speaking students in domestic schools during the “Migration Policy” section of the XXV World Russian People’s Assembly. According to him, the Council advocates amending Russian legislation to allow for the requirement of Russian language proficiency from parents for their children entering school. Fadeev suggests that the government should address the financing of special centers for teaching Russian to children.
Previously, Fadeev provided statistics indicating that between 50 to 75% of children with a “migration history” either poorly speak Russian or do not know it at all. According to Dmitry Medvedev, the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, in certain Russian schools, the percentage of children who cannot communicate in Russian reaches 10-20% of the total number of students. The Deputy Head of the Security Council also noted that such children often become aggressive and form groups based on ethnic identity.
The issue of migrant children in schools has been raised twice by Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2021, during a meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations, he stressed the need to improve the quality of adaptation processes for such students. In early December 2023, during a CCHS meeting, the President noted that educating some children should not lead to a deterioration in the conditions for others to acquire knowledge and promised to prepare proposals to address this issue.
Shortly before that, in November 2023, the Ministry of Education announced its intention to test migrant children for knowledge of Russian, and based on the diagnostics, assign them additional hours of studying the state language.
It’s currently difficult to gauge how effective learning Russian alongside the regular school curriculum will be and whether it will partially solve social and adaptational issues. Complex stories involving young migrants often make headlines in the media quite frequently – take, for example, the recent incident when children pelted the Eternal Flame in St. Petersburg with snow.
Experts interviewed by GORUS acknowledge the existence of the problem. However, they propose to address it at a deeper level than simply creating budget courses for preschoolers.
“President nearly three years ago emphasized that the number of migrant children in our schools should be such that it allows not just formal but deep adaptation to the Russian language environment and Russian values. Unfortunately, this task has not been fulfilled to this day. Even in the capital and the Moscow region, situations often arise where migrant children dominate in specific classes, and adaptation is no longer even considered,” stated Kirill Kabanov, a member of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights and Chair of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, in an interview with GORUS.
According to him, the proposal that children attending our schools should know the Russian language is entirely reasonable.
“But it’s a colossal issue. It requires funding, methodological materials, and educators who are ready to teach Russian as a foreign language, as well as those proficient in the languages these children speak at home. However, even these measures are merely cosmetic,” he added.
“The real solution is to create conditions in which migrants, officially coming here to work, wouldn’t bring their families. Because we have a situation where people arrive with their families, settle down, but don’t consider it necessary to even learn the Russian language, creating ethnic enclaves,” Kabanov pointed out.
“Moreover, when children from such enclaves enter schools, the problem lies not only in language. Teachers often complain about rude behavior from both the children and their parents,” the NAC chairman noted.
In Russia, there’s a legislative push to cement the necessity of Russian language proficiency for migrant children attending schools.
Mikhail Matveev, a State Duma deputy, believes that the issue of teaching the Russian language to migrant children is primarily the responsibility of their parents.
“Parents should ensure their children know the state language. There are various solutions. For instance, we already establish Russian-language schools in Central Asia through the budget. By the way, I wouldn’t view them as ‘loyalty courses to Russia.’ Let’s not forget how graduates of Soviet Russian-language schools in Central Asia, studying under portraits of Lenin and Pushkin in the 90s, turned into fundamentalists,” Matveev expressed.
“In our country, there are classes composed of 90% migrant children. If these are children born in Russia and interacting with their peers, there’s a chance they will know the Russian language to some extent when they start school. But there are also those who have just arrived and don’t know Russian at all. What should be done with them? Instead of explaining the topic to the whole class and moving forward, the teacher is forced to explain the material to a few students who don’t understand what is being said to them.”
“Checking the knowledge of the Russian language upon admission to the first grade is definitely necessary. Especially considering it’s not about hundreds but probably hundreds of thousands of such schoolchildren. In this situation, we need to shift social responsibility from the state and establish normative acts according to which a migrant wishing to bring his family must meet all necessary requirements—from medical insurance to knowledge of the Russian language—back in their home country.”
“However, there is another way out. We can study the successful experience of other countries, in particular, the Gulf states, where a migrant comes without a family, works, earns money, and returns home. But even if we proceed from humanitarian considerations and such an option doesn’t suit us, language courses before entering school are still necessary. Without them, there is no point in education,” concluded the State Duma deputy.
The general conclusion from discussions with experts is that the problem is becoming acute and needs to be addressed systematically. Private measures are unlikely to help. Western countries, having brushed off migration issues for decades, have already trapped themselves. Fortunately, it seems we still have time to develop a scheme that satisfies all parties.
“Today, it’s a purely pragmatic story – a tool to gain a free advantage in the job market and create additional opportunities to work in Russia. So, parents could ensure their children attend such schools. However, if they want to educate their children specifically in Russia, why should it be paid for from the state budget? Why not make education for foreigners, except for special cases, fee-based?” the parliamentarian questioned.
Kabanov finds this proposal logical and suggests shifting the expenses to those who employ migrants.
“They come here to generate additional profits for businesses. So, maybe these corresponding companies should cover these expenses rather than shifting them to the budget? All of this requires substantial normative work. According to the Constitution, education in our country is universally accessible. But does this norm extend to foreigners? That’s the question. To resolve the situation, new normative legal acts need to be developed. At the very least, preparatory language classes need to be established, and at most, ensure that migrants come here to work and then return home,” Kabanov proposed.
According to Mikhail Matveev, the problem is more extensive and more massive than it might seem at first glance.
By Svyatoslav Knyazev