Belarusian Language Society Struggles for Teaching of Belarusian History in Belarusian Language

In its letter dated 3 October the administration of the public association Belarusian Language Society proposed to the head of the Government Siarhei Sidorski to set aside the decision of the Education Ministry according to which the Belarusian history and geography was transferred to the Russian language of teaching in the senior forms of general Russian-language schools since 1 September 2006.

The BLS chair Aleh Trusau pointed out that this decision destroys the well-developed system of teaching history and geography of Belarus in Belarusian and also demands additional efforts from the teachers. The author of the letter also states that the spelling and pronunciation of personal and geographical names in Belarusian and Russian differ, as a result of which the pupils will forget the Belarusian versions of these names.

Aleh Trusau is of the opinion that setting aside this ‘evidently wrong’ decision of the Ministry of Education will completely correspond to the president’s statement that ‘the streams of folklore, talent and love to the mother-tongue, culture and traditions of the Fatherland will never dry in Belarus’.

Another letter was sent to the education minister Aliaksandr Radzkou. Here it is said that the decision about the choice of the language of education is to be solved by the citizens – pupils, their parents and teachers. The minister is asked to show Xerox copies of at least a part of the applications of the Belarusian citizens that there is no possibility to learn the history in Russian.

In his interview to BelaPAN Aleh Trusau expressed the hope that ‘the country’s Government understands the role of the Belarusian language in our life, especially after the latest statements of the head of the state at the press-conference with journalists of Russian mass media about the state support of the Belarusian language.