Russian Human Rights Council chairman calls for amendments requiring students who don’t know Russian to study at language centers instead of ordinary schools

Valery Fadeyev, the chairman of Russia's Human Rights Council, said Wednesday that children who don’t know Russian should not be enrolled in ordinary schools and should instead study the language at “specialized centers.”

Because current Russian legislation does not allow schools to reject students based on their language ability, Fadeyev called for the law to be changed. “The law [should] not allow students in schools when they don’t know Russian and [...] should require them to study Russian in specialized centers,” he said.

Fadeyev added that the Education Ministry is already working on amendments to the law and that he believes the changes should be in place by the start of the fall 2024 school year. He called for the state to fund the proposed language centers: “Imposing additional measures and additional costs on labor migrants is not entirely fair.”