Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 25 – This year, as it did in 2009 and 2019, the VTsIOM polling agency conducted surveys among Russians about which subjects they felt schools should be devoting more attention to and which they felt they could give less attention to. The editors of Nezavisimaya Gazeta have reacted to the findings with a lead article.
Their basic conclusion is summed up in the title of that article – “According to a Poll, Russians don’t need ideological subjects or foreign languages” – a position that the editors suggest in the one case could prove seriously harmful and in the other at least troubling (ng.ru/editorial/2024-08-25/2_9078_red.html)
Regarding foreign languages, the poll found that only nine percent of Russians now say that studying them in schools is important, down from 23 percent in 2019. That likely reflects the change in Moscow’s relations with the outside world, but it also may be the product of the experiences of those surveyed about their own coursework in the past.
But however that may be, such negative attitudes about foreign language instruction are likely to make it far more difficult for many in other fields, such as information technology, to make Russia able to stand on its own, the editors say. And thus it is counterproductive even given the growing hostility to outsiders.
The poll also asked Russians what school subjects they did not consider necessary. More than three out of five (63 percent) did not provide an answer. But four percent said that they didn’t see the need for courses on religion and civic ethics, four percent said the same about music, and three percent about “conversations about the important,” which focuses on the war.
The large share who didn’t answer likely includes many who would share these views if the expression of them was not viewed as potentially dangerous, the editors suggest; and consequently, it seems likely that a significant swath of Russians doesn’t favor such ideological coursework either.
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