Lithuanian minister says closing Russian schools would be 'terrible mistake'

VILNIUS – Lithuanian Economy and Innovation Minister Ausrine Armonaite is skeptical about the ongoing discussions on a possible closure of Russian schools and urges politicians not to use this issue to collect political dividends.

International studies show that pupils from ethnic communities are underachieving, she said and suggested focusing on ensuring the quality of education so that children receive the best education.

"They (Russian schools - BNS) can stay, but children have to be the center of all of this as now … and children need to have the best possible education and we should not run away from that. It would be a terrible mistake to say now that we will close all schools from tomorrow, and I suggest against doing that," Armonaite told the public radio LRT in an interview on Monday.

She believes that the politicians who have raised this issue are trying to increase their popularity in a sensitive geopolitical situation, and she also calls against "sudden moves".

"Now we are using this sensitive geopolitical situation to close down everything, to destroy and so on. We should not do that as we are talking about children, these are their lives, they are growing in schools, and the personalities that will come out of there will have an impact on our country's life," Armonaite said.

"I would not make any sudden moves regarding school closures here. We have excellent schools in Lithuania with other languages of instruction, be it Polish or Russian, so we need to approach this issue very cautiously, not populistically, not drastically, not with Facebook posts, but with analysis," the leader of the Freedom Party, said.

Last week, Educaton, Science and Sport Minister Gintautas Jakstas reopened the debate on Russian-language schools, raising the question of whether it would be better to follow in the footsteps of the Estonians and Latvians and suspend education in Russian as a language of instruction.

The ministry plans to draw up a proposal on the issue over the next few weeks. Jakstas says national minority schools where the education process is done using the languages of EU countries or countries friendly to Lithuania could continue.