The State Duma finally passed a shameful bill on the non-admission of non-citizen children to school if they do not have proof of the Russian language competence and the legality of their stay in the Russian Federation. This is presumably the “federal algorithm for working with children of newcomers who do not speak or are poorly proficient in the Russian language,” which Putin instructed to create at a meeting of the Council on the Russian Language and Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation on November 5 this year. The second and third readings of the draft passed very quickly on December 11, as it was announced by the Duma speaker Volodin, but with the first and main reading, the State Duma timed exactly to the Human Rights Day, which is celebrated on December 10 in memory of the adoption by the UN General Assembly (1948) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The bill flouts the Declaration in the most obvious way.
Let me remind that part 1 of article 26 of the Declaration states: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit”.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, from which Russia has not yet withdrawn, also guarantees the right of children to education “on the basis of equal opportunities” and obliges the state to provide free and compulsory primary education; and as for secondary education, to provide affordable free general and vocational education in various forms, providing financial assistance if necessary.
But what can we say about the violation of the UN Declaration and Convention, if the adopted bill introduces such changes to the Russian Law on Education that violate the Constitution of Russia: after all, in article 43 of the Constitution, the word “everyone” is written, and for this “everyone” (and not only “citizens of the Russian Federation”), education is guaranteed – free, available in its pre-school, basic (i.e., school) and secondary vocational forms; basic general education is compulsory. Of course, it is possible to interpret the provision of the article 43 “Basic general education is mandatory. Parents or persons in parental rope ensure that children receive basic general education” – this is, in fact, how the initiators of the amendments argued publicly, delegating the language training of migrant children to their parents. So, the odious deputy Yarovaya has repeatedly said that it is not about banning admission to school, but only about the need to “prepare” for school, which is not new to Russian parents, now may migrant parents take care of it.
However, it is unlikely that the legislators carefully read and even had in mind the Constitution and some of its formulations: it seems that this is just another extremely harmful, populist and declarative measure, another round in tightening the anti-migrant policy (so that migrants travel without children), another bone thrown to the “Russian Community” and nationalists like this, another loophole for corruption at the level of schools and testing centers.
Much has already been said about the irrationality (or simply stupidity) of this bill – against the background of general lack of personnel, the death of tens of thousands of men in the criminal war, demographic decline, emigration of those who disagree with the regime. What is the benefit of the situation that children will be left to themselves while their parents are at work, from the fact that they will be left without education and communication skills, lag behind their peers? What good is it that millions of people will not be competent in the official language of the host country?
There were few objections to the bill – previously, the State Council of Tatarstan voted against in the majority, and Chairman Farid Mukhametshin, according to media reports, said that migrants are needed in Tatarstan and their children should not be excluded from education. During the discussion of the bill in the State Duma, questions were raised again from deputies from Tatarstan, which Yarovaya fought off. Let me remind that the sensitive law on the abolition of compulsory study of the native languages at school also caused protests in Tatarstan, but likely the current critical voices will be suppressed in the same way as it was with the law on native languages. There were also voices from expert economists that restrictions on migrant labor would lead to inflation and economic stagnation. On the eve of the discussion of the bill, Peskov suddenly said that Russia “only welcomes” migrants, since the country needs workers. But all these objections did not affect the vote in the State Duma.
Recently, Spain has demonstrated a pragmatic and far-sighted approach to the problem of migration. Without hiding the fact that the reform of migration legislation is also based on planning (replenishment of the labor market in the short and long term), and not an abstract love for newcomers, the government has significantly simplified the legalization and employment of migrants and asylum seekers, as well as family reunification. If we want to fight crime, human trafficking and the black market for the legalization of migrants – we will simplify migration rules.
But the approach of Russia is different matter, contrary to common sense. Migration policy has been ambivalent over the past decades. On the one hand, it is cynically pragmatic: business needs cheap labor, the state needs huge payments for patents and fees for legalizing documents, various corrupt officials need their income (migration rules are complex and change all the time, thus corruption infrastructure flourishes around labor migration – all these medical centers, Russian language testing centers, documentation and registration centers, arbitrariness of the police and constant bribes). On the other hand, the authorities did not prevent anti-migrant sentiments, and in recent years they have completely merged with Russian nationalists and have themselves become the mouthpiece and flagship of aggressive xenophobia. The bill on the non-admission of non–citizen children to school is a reflection of this latest trend.
However, it cannot be said that – simultaneously with the adoption and implementation of anti–migrant laws and practices – nothing has been done in the education system on integrating foreign-speaking children or, as they sometimes say, “children with a migration history.” However, there was no state integration system, no network of free language learning centers, and schools did not receive permanent and targeted funding to work with foreign-speaking children. In the 2000s, the project “Russian School” was developed but discontinued; methods of teaching and adapting children speaking foreign languages were developed and successfully applied. Even now, against the background of recent anti-migrant hysteria, this work continues. Despite all the difficulties and obstacles, public and volunteer initiatives to support migrant children, education, extracurricular activities, and family support are also developing. There are even projects with government support. For example, Moscow State Pedagogical University has been developing a project for methodological support of educational and socio-cultural integration of migrant children for several years, several Russian regions and dozens of educational institutions participate in it. The rector of the Moscow State University Alexey Lubkov spoke recently about these developments and his recommendations (intensive Russian language courses for preschoolers, additional classes for those who are already studying, mass teacher training, teaching appropriate methods to students of pedagogical universities), stressing that classes for foreign-speaking children should be free.
In fact, there is no need to reinvent the wheel, and the proposed approach is quite close to how foreign-speaking children are treated in European countries: pre-school immersion in the language environment, temporary integration classes for older children (if required), rapid joining a regular age class, additional parallel language classes. Testing older children can be applied – but only in order to identify them in the appropriate class and integrate them quickly. But there is no ban on admission to school for anyone – neither for those who do not speak the language, nor for children without registration and documents.
Let’s not forget about children – citizens of Russia, for whom Russian is not a native language and who do not have the opportunity to study in their native language. They also need additional classes (of course, free of charge), and their teachers need methodological developments, advanced training and paid additional lessons and extracurricular work. For many years, Anti-Discrimination Center Memorial has been talking about the problems of integrating Roma children (and all these years the state has been denying the problem). But in places where Roma settlements are situated, the most common thing is to create segregated “Gypsy classes” where the absolute majority of children do not speak Russian sufficiently – this is exactly what the “experts” from the State Duma are so afraid of: that there will be many non-Russian language children speakers in the same class. Even before the adoption of the bill on migrant children at school, in September 2024, the Ministry of Education sent out recommendations “no more than three migrants in a class” – it would be just fine if these recommendations were implemented without violating children’s rights, and even applied to “Gypsy classes” for their desegregation and integration children in “normal” classes!
Unfortunately, these recommendations are understood by schools in a completely different way, namely, they are used as an excuse to refuse admission to school for migrant children. Experts from the Migration and Law network testify that both before and after these recommendations, schools often told parents that they accept “only children who are citizens of the Russian Federation.” This, of course, was illegal, because the only reason for refusing admission was the lack of places. But now schools will get a “legitimate” excuse not to accept a foreign-speaking child if he/she does not have registration or does not speak Russian well enough.
However, the propaganda component of the current Russian education system is disgusting and inclines, rather, to boycott it – that’s why many parents, if possible, take their children out to “home schooling”. The return of military training to school curriculum, the militaristic obligatory invasion of the “Yunarmia” and the “Movement of the First”, brainwashing on “conversations about important things”, surveillance of children on social networks and denunciations of teachers and school principals against children expressing an anti–war position or simply expressing independent thoughts – is this the “manna from heaven” that non-citizen schoolchildren citizens, according to the State Duma, should still achieve by taking tests in the Russian language?
Instead of the skills of working with foreign-speaking children, teachers are taught completely different matters. For example, programs for teachers on the prevention of “neo–Nazism”, where, among other things (“Russophobia as an integral part of neo-Nazi threats to Russia”, “Reasons for conducting the Special Military Operation for Russia’s national security”, etc.), there is a section on the formation of “traditional Russian identity” – targeting children taken out of Ukraine and children living in the occupied territories of Ukraine (it is called “Specifics of working with children from new territories of Russia and Ukrainian youth from territories controlled by the Kiev regime”). It’s reported that more than a thousand teachers have signed up for this course, and I would not be surprised if such courses become mandatory for them.
It is remarkable, however, who exactly instructs teachers on the topic of “prevention”. Among the declared lecturers is a former spy and now MGIMO professor Bezrukov, who was exposed in 2010 and among other failed agents was exchanged; in Russia he was employed in Rosneft (while his wife in Norilsk Nickel; on the other hand, in exchange got the now widely known Skripal and the long-before known Igor Sutyagin). This Bezrukov, along with his wife, also a spy, portrayed a normal family; their two sons knew nothing about espionage and the double life of their parents; they were, of course, extremely shocked by the reality that opened up after the arrest of the spies and, after living in Russia for several years, regained their Canadian citizenship through the court, as they considered it their native country. Now such an immoral (and rather uneducated) figure as Bezrukov, who neglected the rights of even his own children, is assigned to Russian propaganda among teachers – and indirectly – among children.
It is clear that the proposed “prevention” has very little to do with the rights of the child, which include the right to education, as well as with the content of education as such. Let us recall again the Universal Declaration, its preamble: “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.”
And the preamble to the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that “the child should be fully prepared to live an individual life in society, and brought up in the spirit of the ideals proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, and in particular in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity.”
This is what the school should teach – all children without discrimination.
Olga Abramenko, expert of ADC Memorial
First published on the blog of Radio Svoboda (in Russian)
.