Russian language: Russian language prospects on the Federation Council’s agenda

The first session of the Expert Council of the Federation Council Committee for Education and Science took place in the Federation Council of Russia. It highlighted issues of support, preservation and development of Russian language in Russia and abroad.

The Expert Council includes members of the Federation Council of Russia, rectors of the leading Russian Universities, language and literature departments’ deans, federal and regional authorities, and scholars. The Chairman of the Federation Council Committee for Education and Science Husein Chechenov presided at the session.

Mr. Chechenov emphasized consolidation of Russian language status abroad and education improvement as one of the priority aims of the campaign for Russian language support. According to the parliamentarian, the Expert Council was called to coordinate efforts of the profile departments and organizations in legislation improvement.

Within the discussion the session’s participants posed major problems. In the first place they announced that Russia lacked a sound policy aimed at language support and development. Among other problems are -  insufficient financial backing of campaigns called to support Russian language abroad, shortage of measures intended for Russian education popularization at the world market, insufficient acquisition of library funds in CIS countries and countries of Far abroad with books in Russian.

Deputy Director of the Department for International Cooperation in Education and Science of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia Larisa Yefremova focused the attention of participants on implementation of the Federal target program “Russian language”. She stated that the program specified means for Russian language promotion. She also stressed an increased number of sources of funding.

She pointed out that the forms of the Russian language promotion had been improving, however those means and resources were not enough. “The program specifies holding different functions – festivals and contests, – clarified the deputy of the Ministry of Education. But there are no means to send teachers on a long-term business trip abroad”.

Tatjana Balykhina, Dean of the Faculty of Improvement of Professional Skills of Teachers of Russian at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, told that pedagogues of the leading universities of Russia had been working under brand new methods and innovative programs of Russian language teaching. According to Ms Balykhina, a large number of different events take place in order to improve the situation. These are contests in Russian language, which are carried out on a regular basis, summer linguistic schools, courses of cross-cultural communication, festivals of languages and virtual lessons.