Training field camps for 10th-grade students have begun in Belarus. Starting this year, they have become part of the mandatory school curriculum. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s Advisor on Youth Policy and Students, Marharyta Vorykhava, comments on the new measure in the education system:
“Lukashenka presents himself as someone who keeps war away from Belarus. But if that is truly the case, why is military logic being forced into schools?
For the first time in Belarus, field camps for 10th-grade students have become mandatory. In the Homiel region, schoolchildren are being immersed in a military environment as part of the educational program — with uniforms, drills, weapons, and speeches from officials and military personnel. In some camps, teenagers did not even have enough tents and had to sleep in school gyms.
This is not harmless ‘patriotic education’. It is the normalization of militarization from an early age. It teaches children obedience rather than freedom. It convinces young people that the state determines their future before they are even given the opportunity to choose it themselves.
The broader system makes this even more obvious. According to the Faculty of Military Affairs, Belarus already has 337 military classes in 220 schools, around 300 military clubs involving about 8,000 participants, 9 cadet schools, and 736 military camps attended by around 27,000 young people in a single summer. The Ministry of Education has also introduced 1,730 positions for military instructors, 82% of whom are former military personnel or security service officers. In addition, entrance exams to military universities have been abolished for graduates of military classes and cadet schools, making this path even more institutionalized.
Young people, however, must not be turned into a reserve force for security bodies. They should grow up without imposed military rhetoric and be free to choose their own path. War must not be romanticized or presented to children as the natural future of their country”.
