Gintautas Jakštas, Minister of Education, Science and Sport, says that fewer and fewer Lithuanian students are choosing Russian as a second foreign language, and only a few schools will offer Russian language classes in ten years.
“I would say that Russian will not be on a par with French or German. I would expect that if we maintained the trends we have today, there will be very limited opportunities to choose Russian, and only a small number of students will be able to learn Russian in a few schools,” the minister told the bernardinai.lt news portal in an interview published on Tuesday.
The minister noted that the training of teachers of other foreign languages is currently being strengthened, while Russian teachers are not being trained.
"We can see that change is happening fast [...]. The number of students choosing the Russian language has gone from 20,300 to 14,100 in two years. That is impressive,” Jakštas said. “If we could maintain this pace for a few more years, we could think about a healthy balance, so that there is a diversity of language choices in all schools.”
According to Jakštas, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport is recommending that schools drop Russian as a second foreign language, but no drastic changes are planned.
“We don’t want to take drastic measures and cut off Russian language teaching. We need to make changes gradually. [...] Those who have already started learning Russian in the sixth grade should have the opportunity to continue,” he said.
According to the ministry, the number of students choosing to study German or French as their second foreign language is increasing. Last year, 73 percent of pupils studied Russian as a second foreign language, while 17.8 percent studied German, and 7 percent chose French.
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