BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 24
Trend:
In Armenia, either by law or by another ordinance, it is completely forbidden for children of Armenian nationality to study in non-Armenian schools. And as far as I know, there is only one or two Russian schools in Armenia, and they are for the military, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said during the meeting with the leaders of Russia’s top mass media at the TASS headquarters, Trend reports.
"As for teaching in Russian, yes, this is a conscious policy. We are doing this, first of all, for ourselves, of course, so that those who want to study in Russian – both Azerbaijanis and non-Azerbaijanis – have such an opportunity. The demand for studying in the Russian sector, as we call it, is high in schools, and, as I said, both Azerbaijanis and non-Azerbaijanis study – more than 140,000 children and more than 15,000 Azerbaijani citizens study at universities in the Russian department. For comparison, let me say that in Armenia, either by law or by another ordinance, it is completely forbidden for children of Armenian nationality to study in non-Armenian schools. And as far as I know, there is only one or two Russian schools in Armenia, and they are for the military. This, as they say, is regarding the question of who is who. So the Declaration signed yesterday, of course, contains a clause on humanitarian cooperation, and this cooperation is mutual. Before my visit to Moscow, I was given an information note stating that there is a department in the Azerbaijani language in Russia. There are about 80 schools. We welcome this very much, so that Azerbaijanis who are Russian citizens, as well as those who work here, their children could also study in their own language. In other words, this is a mutual process, which is fully in the spirit of cooperation, and I think, as Timur said, that in comparison with other countries of the post-Soviet space, this is an example of how this should be treated. This applies not only to education, but also to the attitude towards the Russian language in general. In Azerbaijan, there is a state university, the Slavic University, where they, first of all, study the Russian language and train teachers of the Russian language and other Slavic languages," the head of state said.