Please, send the information about everything concerning education in Belarus to our safe anonymous chatbot @eduOST_bot. Please, tell us news from your educational institution or government agency about repressions and various forms of pressure from the management, and write to us about corruption and new regulations which you consider unreasonable or irrational. You are also invited to share your ideas and suggestions on the issue of educational system reform.
On 19 August, the scientific community was reported to have suffered a great loss – Sergey Alexandrovich Shavel, Dr. habil. of sociological sciences, acknowledged as one of the key researchers of Belarusian sociology, passed away. His scientific heritage comprises over 180 works, including 8 monographs. Sergey Alexandrovich was the head of the department of social theory and methodology at the Institute of Sociology, the scope of his research activities embraced the social framework, the issues of incentives for creative initiative and innovation activity, and social aspects of consumerism. We express our deepest condolences to the family and friends.
Contents:
– Civil Society and Education
– Repressions
– Regime Politics
- Civil Society and Education
The education initiative Belarusian Academy, in cooperation with the Personnel Reserve for the New Belarus company, invites applicants for the 2023/2024 study course Management for government bodies, self-governance and business. The course will be housed by the Higher School of Management Personnel in Konin, Foreign Department (Wyższa Szkoła Kadr Menedżerskich w Koninie, Wydział Zamiejscowy). Applications are to be submitted by 15 September 2023. For more detail about the studying process and application procedure see here.
Applications for participation in the conference “Seeking new forms for fresh aspirations”. Vaclav Lastovsky and Belarusian Linguists in the Cultural Discourse of the ‘20s and ‘30s may be submitted until 10 September. The conference will be held on 10 and 11 November 2023 at the Skaryna Library in London in a hybrid format designed for the participants to be able to join it from anywhere in the world. Please, send us proposals as to the reports on the subjects connected with the personality and heritage of Vaclav Lastovsky and other leading language experts or with the history of Belarusian language studies and Belarusistics by 10 September 2023 at library@skaryna.org.uk. The working languages of the conference will be Belarusian and English.
A document containing recommendations of the Council of the European Union on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning has been translated into Belarusian. In total, there are 8 basic competences essential to citizens for personal fulfilment, a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, employability, active citizenship and social inclusion.
Adukavanka project has launched an online lesson constructor, with any teacher being provided an option to compile, through 4 steps, an interesting lesson for achieving certain targets. There are also a catalogue of methods and alternative activities (approximately 120 options) and a possibility to download the constructor book available. The project promoters invite volunteers to join the team and contribute to the community expansion and project services development.
A campaign for signing a petition to open a school teaching in the Belarusian language is being underway in Vilnius. The campaign team seek to have a free community school opened. The initiative requires massive public support from the Belarusian diaspora in Lithuania. Read here about how to help the campaign to succeed.
The first Belarusian online school in Ukraine invites children to study in forms 4 to 10. The curriculum includes the Belarusian language and literature, advanced English learning, basic IT knowledge and core school subjects. More details about the school are published at their website.
Read a comprehensive interview with the programme director of the Free Belarus University Ales Logvinets about the mission of the university and the conditions in which it operates today, the assistance it gets from Poland and the opportunities it may offer to the Belarusians in Podlaskie Voivodeship. The interview also dwells upon the further path of the Belarusian education.
Sergey Olshevsky has analyzed the results of the Belarusian universities admission process. The expert shows, using the data available, that the actual admission score and the number of applicants differ from those officially stated by the Ministry of Education. Many faculties and departments experience shortage of applicants even for state-funded places, while the admission score is a far cry from the much-desired 400. The full version of the interview together with screenshots and charts is available here.
Adukatsya.info project is back under a new name – aduplace. The project accounts offer lots of information about educational opportunities and content for self-development, including selected materials, lecture notes, stories of Belarusians enrolled in international programmes, to mention but a few. Aduplace has accounts in Instagram, Telegram and Facebook.
The Ideas Bank has published “What is the University that Belarusians need?” by Dr. habil. of historical sciences, Professor Viktor Shadursky. Does the level of Belarusian students and lecturers differ from that of their Western colleagues? Is it possible to put an end to the decline of the Belarusian higher education? What problems can the creation of the Global League of Belarusian Students help to solve? The full text is available here.
According to the Driving Forces behind Green Transition research (carried out by the Green Belarus initiative), Belarus has no education options in the sphere of sustainable development and green economy. One of the researchers, Mariya Faloleyeva, claims that, in a while, Belarus may lose some markets if the national industry fails to meet environmental standards. In the full version of her interview Mariya Faloleyeva explains why such issues are of particular relevance, what experts the country is short of even today, and what risks arise as a result of international and public organizations terminating their operations.
- Repressions
In late July, Aleksey Batyukov, a historian, the former director of the Museum of Mogilyov City History, was detained in Mogilyov. Aleksey has already been detained in 2020 and fined for “participation in an unauthorized mass event”, and in 2021, his employment contract was not extended and he was removed from the post of the Museum director.
On 6 August, Elena Kishkurno, a former teacher from Prozoroki agro-town, was reported to have been put under 10 days’ arrest for “extremist” materials on her page in VKontakte. Before the court, the 66-year-old woman did not deny that the mass media materials declared to be “extremist” by Belarusian authorities had been published on her social network page. However, she stated that she had deleted all information as early as in 2021.
The Belarusian Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal lodged by Valeriya Kostyugova and upheld the sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment. This is the term Valeriya was sentenced to by Dina Kuchuk, a judge of the Minsk City Court. Valeriya Kostyugova is a political analyst, an editor of the Nashe Mneniye (Our Opinion) analysis website, and a compiling editor of the Belaruski Ezhegodnik (Belarusian Yearbook). The same term of 10 years’ imprisonment was imposed upon Tatyana Kuzina, an expert in public management, the founder of the School of Young Managers in Public Administration (SYMPA) and the BIPART research centre. Both experts were found guilty of conspiracy to seize power, incitement to hatred and calls for actions against national security. On 10 August, Valeriya Kostyugova and Tatyana Kuzina were reported to have been transported under guard to Gomel Colony No. 4.
On 10 August, mass media published information about the detention of Elena Drobudko, the manager of the students’ residence building of the Belarus State Economic University. In 2020, she was a member of election commission No. 10 housed by the same residence building. According to the Golos voting platform, the votes cast there for Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and evidenced by bulletin photos exceeded the number presented by the commission in its final official report. Following the elections, Elena joined the protests against the falsification of the election results, for which she was detained in August 2020.
On 16 August, KGB officers detained at least 7 people at the National Historical Archives of Belarus. Those detained included the deputy director of research and heads of departments. This is not the first wave of repression at the National Archives. While the former director, major general Oleg Orlov, had held his office, a number of employees had already been dismissed and detained. The second wave of repression hit two days after the appointment of a new director, Mikhail Glushakov, who had long been a KGB officer.
The judge of the Minsk City Court Dina Kuchuk sentenced the scholar Yury Adamov to three years of imprisonment for financing extremist activities. Yury was detained in March 2023 for donations to “extremist” funds and held at the Volodarka detention facility in Minsk until the commencement of court proceedings; he has been declared a political prisoner. Yury Adamov is a member of the Belarusian Community for Free Software and one of the founders of the Pamylka popular science self-publishing project.
Nikolay Bankov, a former lecturer of the Chair of Communication at the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics, has been sentenced to a 4-year term for “financing extremist activities”. Three donations made by Nikolay in August 2020 became the ground for charges and conviction (Svetlana Bondarenko being the judge). At the University, Nikolay Bankov taught students planning to be Belarusian career security officers a variety of subjects.
Nataliya Martusevich, Ph.D in biology, a former chairholder at a Mogilyov university, has been charged with “incitement to hostility”. Investigative authorities claim that Nataliya called for actions involving violence “against Belarusians, Russians and members of armed forces”. She will be held in custody until the commencement of court proceedings. According to the information available to human rights defenders, Nataliya Martusevich was detained in March 2023.
Professor Yury Bubnov has been sentenced to two years of imprisonment for a scientific article. The Doctor of sociological sciences was charged with defamation and insult of Lukashenko. His article Background for Belarusian Protests in 2020 was published by a little-known academic yearbook Molodezhnaya Galaktika (Youth Galaxy). Human rights defenders believe that the only way security officials could have found out about the article was from a denunciation made by Bubnov’s colleagues or from other yearbook authors.
On 7 August, MAYDAY TEAM Telegram channel published information about the detention of Yuliya Poplavskaya, an English teacher at Mogilyov secondary school No. 43. Human rights defenders are unaware of the reason for the detention. It happened during the series of arrests in Mogilyov carried out by the Belarusian Committee for State Security (KGB).
A trial of Anna Skrigan, a reputed environmental expert, is to be held in Mogilyov. According to the information available to human rights defenders, the court proceedings were scheduled to be conducted on 21 August in camera. No circumstances of the criminal case against or the detention of the expert are known as at the publication date of this digest.
- Regime Politics
Kosht Urada (Cost of Government) project has published data evidencing that, since 2000, Belarusian science has lost one third of its potential. While in the 2000s there were over 32 thousand people involved in research and development activities, there were only 25,000 of them left in 2022. The lost potential amounts to up to one quarter of those engaged in the sphere and up to one third of most qualified staff (Drs. Habil. And PhDs).
The Belarusian Helsinki Committee has issued a report on human rights which highlights, among other things, escalating military propaganda in Belarusian education sector in the first six months of 2023. The report mentions such examples as the memorial event to honour the Russian war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, in which schoolchildren from Gomel had to take part, intensive recruitment by educational institution of instructors of military training and patriotic upbringing, etc.
On 25 July, Belarusian universities completed admission process for state-funded places. This year, Belarusian higher education institutions plan to enrol over 52 thousand applicants, 28.4 thousand of them to study on a budgetary basis. According to minister of education Andrey Ivanets, medical degree remains popular, with the relevant universities having, in average, 2.5 applicants per place. The highest competition for state-funded education was observed among those applying to major in Design at the Belarusian State University and in Dentistry at the Vitebsk State Medical Institute, being in both cases 12 applicants per place. Regional universities saw high competition. More details about competition levels and admission scores are available here.
The Belarusian State University has risen tuition fee for full-time students and correspondence departments, as well as for foreigners. The cost has increased by an average of 7 per cent. New fees become effective starting from 1 September this year. More detail about the revised fees is available here
Minister of education Andrey Ivanets has emphasized that Belarus has no fee-based education, as the state provides significant support to educational sector through subsidies. At the very best, students compensate up to 70 per cent of the cost of education, while for medical students and art students the compensation share is only 50 per cent. According to the minister, fee-based education provided by the country is a form of social support for young people to get a university degree.
Education officials have issued standard recommendations on teaching school subjects for the new academic year. In 2023/2024, schoolchildren will have to face extensive ideology. Teachers are recommended to dwell upon the “genocide of the Belarusian people” while teaching different subjects, during the pre-army training and at foreign language lessons. Teachers are also required to pursue patriotic upbringing not only at history lessons, but also at lessons of chemistry or computer studies.
On the threshold of a new academic year, some Belarusian schools in Minsk and Brest remove Great Britain flags and other British symbols from English language rooms. Teachers have got oral instructions to replace them with Belarusian symbols or landscape pictures. Officials from the ministry of education deny that any official orders or instructions to that effect were given, but at the same time state that during meetings it was recommended to create neutral surroundings in foreign language rooms.
The ministry of education has put forward an initiative for 100 per cent of schoolchildren to be engaged in certain activities on Saturdays. A representative of the ministry has informed educational institutions that they are required to keep schoolchildren fully busy not only on the sixth school day, but also on holidays. For this purpose, teachers are supposed to use resources of supplementary education establishments, cultural institutions, sports facilities, military patriotic clubs and youth organizations. What is meant here is extracurricular activities and events, while no compulsory academic courses for Saturdays have been introduced.
Mass media point out that Wagner Group LLC has been registered in Belarus to perform “educational activities”. The legal entity was registered by the Osipovichi district executive committee on 4 August 2023. The principal business of the company is claimed to be “Other types of education not falling within other groups”.
In late July, contractors from Wagner PMC paid a visit to the Rys children’s military patriotic club. The meeting was also attended by Nikoly Karpenkov, deputy minister of internal affairs, commander-in-chief of internal military forces. Propagandists published a video showing children in military fatigues and green berets and the contractors who trained them to gesture a jamba (a shaka sign), their own identification signal.
A resource centre for military training and patriotic upbringing equivalent to the Russian Avangard is planned to be opened in Belarus. The Russian centre started to operate in 2020 and takes over 30 thousand attendees per year. It provides reserve training and primary instruction for “voluntary contractors”. The attendees are taught, among other things, to “confront nazi ideology”. In Belarus, the Centre for Patriotic Upbringing of Young People is to be located in the Brest Fortress. Lukashenko has declared the facility to be an “all-Belarusian youth construction project”.
The Russian Ministry of Defence has suggested cooperation with Minsk in working with young people to “counteract information and psychological war”. The idea was put forward by the deputy minister of defence Viktor Goremykin at the pro-Russian “antifascist congress” held in Minsk on 18 August. It was proposed that “the board or the task team” should include cultural figures, advisers on science and history, military experts and representatives of youth movements.
On 22 August, the Belarusian State University conducted a “university-wide voluntary campaign” to improve the territory of the Stalin Line Historical and Cultural Complex. Over 50 students representing all faculties cleared paths of grass and rubbish, fixed the walls of fighting holes, etc. After the works were completed, the students were taken on a tour around the complex, had a meeting in an informal setting with the university’s principal Andrey Korol, and were offered thematic lunch with soldier’s porridge.
