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Ethnic minorities in Lithuania plan school strikes

Xinhua, August 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

Polish and Russian ethnic minority schools in Lithuania plan to hold a strike against amendments to education, announced the political party Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania on Friday.

According to the party's announcement, the strike will be held on Sept. 2. Parents have been urged not to send their children to classes at Polish and Russian schools.

"We, the parents of Polish and Russian pupils, declare that we are holding a general strike from the start of the new school year," the party announced in its statement.

According to the statement, the action is aimed at legislation stipulating the education of ethnic minorities adopted five years ago.

The strike initiators want the Lithuanian authorities to cancel legislation stipulating examinations be sat in the Lithuanian language, and return the Polish-language exam to the list of mandatory exams.

The protest organizers also want an increase of per capita education funding of 50 percent.

Party officials didn't reveal the number of schools which would join the strike.

Responding to the upcoming strike, the Lithuanian education and science ministry noted the legislation adopted several years ago didn't have a negative influence on exams of students from ethnic minorities.

"Graduates from ethnic minority schools have successfully taken it for several years, receiving the top marks," Genoveita Krasauskiene, vice-minister of education and science, told BNS news agency, noting graduates from ethnic minority schools have been allowed to make more mistakes than Lithuanian graduates.

"Under the plan, these facilitations will be in place until 2019," she added.

With Polish pupils accounting for around three percent of all pupils, there are 80 Polish schools, including mixed schools, in Lithuania, a northern neighbor of Poland.

Meanwhile, there are 62 Russian schools, including mixed schools, in Lithuania, according to Lithuania's Center of Information Technologies in Education. Endit