No Russian — no schooling: Russia restricts access to education for migrant children
Critics say the move is discriminatory and at a time when there is an acute labour shortage, Russia needs to find better ways to help migrants integrate.
On 11 December Russia’s parliament voted unanimously in favour of a new law which will deny migrant children a place in school if they don’t speak good enough Russian. The new policy, which will come into effect next April, is the latest in a series of recent moves to tighten up migration legislation in Russia. Critics say it’s a violation of the constitution - which guarantees an education to every child, and they warn the move will stir up tensions and damage integration.
At Vladimir Putin’s flagship annual press conference and phone-in on 19 December he was asked to comment on the recent decision by the State Duma, to pass a bill requiring all migrant children to pass a language proficiency test before being allowed a place at school.
His response gave a clear thumbs up to the new rules:
“How can a child study at school without knowing the language?” he said. “It means they would need extra help with their Russian. And who would pay for that?”
His comments echoed those made by State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin, the man behind both the language testing bill and a raft of other measures introduced this year to tighten up existing migration laws.
“The low level of Russian language proficiency or its absence among migrant children places immense stress on the child,” Volodin wrote in a Telegram post in September.
“Migrant children find themselves in a classroom environment without the ability to communicate. This in turn creates challenges for their classmates, and educators are unable to teach effectively...”
Since the new law was passed, it has been widely discussed in Russia, and while many ordinary Russians support the move, by no means everyone thinks it is a good thing.
BBC Russian has spoken to regional analysts, campaigners for migrant rights and some teachers, all of whom question how much of a problem migrant children with poor language skills really are in Russian schools. They also ask why a country which clearly needs migrants to fill the widening jobs gap, can’t find better ways to ensure newcomers and their families integrate into Russian society.
Migrant workers – mainly from Central Asian countries – have long been a familiar sight on the streets of Russian towns from Moscow to Vladivostok, and it’s clear that this new legislation is aimed primarily at them.
But there are few reliable statistics for how many are in Russia legally, how many are undocumented, and as a result how many children might potentially be impacted by the new rules.
It’s important to point out that language testing will only affect children whose parents are legally working in Russia, says Valentina Chupik, a pro bono lawyer for migrants. Children of undocumented migrants do not have the right to go to school in Russia.
However, most migrants do not bring their children with them when they come to Russia, Chupik told the BBC.
"The only children arriving are with Kyrgyz or Tajik women whose husbands have obtained Russian citizenship. These children will themselves become Russian citizens in three to four months."
Kyrgyzstan and Russia have long had an agreement which simplifies procedures for Kyrgyz nationals to apply for Russian citizenship.
“I’ve looked at the statistics and I wouldn’t say there’s been a big influx of migrant children into Russian schools,” says Galiya Ibragimova, an analyst and expert on Central Asia.
“According to the latest data for 2021, there were around 140 thousand migrant children in Russia. For such a big country I don’t think that’s such a huge number,” she told the BBC.
“A significant proportion, of course, will be concentrated in big cities like Moscow and St Petersburg – around 60 thousand. But it seems to me that these are not the kind of numbers that are likely to cause harm to the Russian education system.”
“And do we know how many of these children already know Russian?” she continued. “Don’t forget that Central Asia is a place where many people still speak Russian.”
Lawyer Valentina Chupik told the BBC that the new rules were a clear violation of the Russian constitution, which guarantees the right to an education to every child- regardless of gender, race, nationality, language, origin or place of residence.
She said she feared the move would achieve little beyond stoking resentment within migrant communities.
“This discriminatory law will have no impact on the number of migrants in Russia,” she said. “It will however contribute to a rise in anti-Russian sentiment among migrants and strengthen the influence of Islamic extremism."
Galiya Ibragimova agrees. She told the BBC that Moscow’s prestigious Presidential Academy had carried out some research which showed how successfully many second-generation migrant children with roots in Central Asia and the Caucasus had already integrated into Russian society.
These were children born in Russia, whose parents had moved there often to do manual work, but who had received a Russian education, benefitted from it and gone on to find good jobs. She said she feared the new rules restricting access to schools would now have the reverse effect.
“[Migrant workers] just won’t send their children to school,” she said. “These kids will sit at home or hang around on the streets. They’ll be marginalised, and that’s the road to getting involved in underground groups and so on.”
“Today it’s an Uzbek, tomorrow it might be a child with a disability and the day after tomorrow it could be a boy or girl who is overweight. It’s a spiral of discrimination… and migrant children have just been swept into it.”
Teachers divided
In August the newspaper Vedomosti published a story with some interesting details about what Russian school teachers think about language levels among migrant children.
It quoted a survey of 2000 teachers across the country which showed that while just over half thought migrant children struggled with the Russian language and had difficulties as a result, 42% held the opposite view. And despite the challenges, 80% of teachers said that foreign children did not have behavioural issues and 70% said they did not have difficulties interacting with other children.
In an attempt to find out more, BBC Russian has also reached out to teachers and volunteers working with children in Russia.
Kristina (full name withheld), a volunteer from a St. Petersburg charitable organization that works with children from disadvantaged families, including migrants, told the BBC that many schools offer little support to foreign children learning Russian. But nonetheless she said her experience was that most of them manage to achieve a level of Russian proficiency by the time they reach elementary school.
“We have one girl who has been here for just over two years. She makes mistakes but speaks Russian quite well,” say Kristina. “There are two sisters from Afghanistan in the fourth grade who speak Russian well yet make a lot of written mistakes and cannot comprehend complex language, such as poetry. And there's a boy who has been here for seven years, but his Russian leaves much to be desired – nonetheless he somehow made it to the seventh grade.”
A Russian-speaking environment is a crucial factor for foreign children learning the language. Educators say that the earlier this happens, the better – and the easier it becomes for them to begin to converse in Russian.
Elena (full name withheld) works as an assistant educator in a St. Petersburg kindergarten where at least one or two foreign children were present in each of her three shifts. “They played and amused themselves just like the others,” she says, “and of course they began to speak.”
We also spoke to Konstantin, a teacher from Kaliningrad.
He told us he believes that children in school can learn to speak reasonably well in a year. And if they have some experience interacting with peers, they can achieve this even more quickly.
Konstantin told us he had not heard colleagues discussing the idea of preventing children without Russian from attending school – but he thought it was possible some teachers – and parents might support it.
“I have a feeling that this idea will be welcomed [by many] in public schools,” he said. “Right now, people tend to relate to migrant children, and to migrants themselves, in a negative way rather than showing tolerance.”
Galiya Ibragimova told the BBC she was also concerned that language testing was a reflection of what she sees as a growing intolerance in Russia.
“In parents chat groups we see mums and dads start complaining that some Uzbek is stopping their child from getting a good education. Today it’s an Uzbek, tomorrow it might be a child with a disability and the day after tomorrow it could be a boy or girl who is overweight. It’s a spiral of discrimination… and migrant children have just been swept into it.”
Language skills and integration
Pavel used to teach history, cultural and social studies at a school in Moscow. He says that “restricting enrolment in school for children with limited Russian denies them the opportunity to integrate into Russian society.
Until 2023, Pavel worked in schools on the outskirts of Moscow and he taught many young people for whom Russian was not their first language.
“In these schools, migrant children make up about a quarter to a third of the class,” he told the BBC. “They speak Russian, but they speak it badly.”
Pavel acknowledged that this did have an impact.
“There are two options: either you teach at a very slow pace or you ‘lose’ the children who speak Russian badly,” he told the BBC.
Many of his fellow teachers were not particularly sympathetic to minority students, and so they tended to opt for the latter approach, he said. The result he said was that classes would end up with a group of teenagers lagging behind, feeling left out and sticking together – which inevitably lead to tensions with the rest of the class.
“What else can these children do when they are perceived as outsiders?” he said.
Sofia works with primary school children at an after-school tutorial centre in Vladivostok and has students from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. She agrees with Pavel and believes that foreign children with poor Russian should not be denied admission to schools. She thinks that keeping migrant children out of Russian schools is dangerous and will further marginalise them.
“A potential solution to the problem could be to enrol the child one grade lower than his or her age group, or to let them continue with their age group while having intensive extra tutoring.” Sofia realises that “this is a considerable time and financial burden for migrant families. Yet without family involvement, the state cannot solve the problem.”
Why no special language support
Pavel, the former history teacher, told us what Russian schools really need are special language teaching provisions, and counselling to help students integrate into their new lives in Russia. Nothing like this is currently available in Russia.
Central Asia analyst Galiya Ibragimova agrees. She told the BBC she had numerous examples of Russian friends who had emigrated abroad to a range of countries from France, the Netherlands and Israel, to South Korea, and in all cases their children, and sometimes the parents themselves, had special support at school to help them improve their language skills.
“I think it’s just not of interest to the Russian Federation to employ some extra teachers, or tutors and to do something for free – to make Russia more attractive and to promote the Russian language,” she said. “For that you need money and as we all know, right now significant budgetary resources are not going to be spent on raising the salaries of workers in the social sphere.”
‘Anti-migrant’ laws
The new rules on language proficiency are part of a wider series of new regulations being rolled out in 2024 which affect the lives of migrant workers in Russia. The new measures give Russian police the power to expel foreign nationals from Russia without a hearing for offenses such as drug trafficking, public consumption of alcohol and the promotion of LGBTQ+ rights.
The new legislation also establishes a special “expulsion regime” for undocumented immigrants, or for migrants who have somehow broken the law. They will be required to register in a special database and will be prohibited from purchasing property or opening bank accounts.
“My colleague from Tajikistan told me today that all the flights returning from Russia to Tajikistan are chock full of Tajik nationals being deported from Russia.”
Duma deputies have also increased penalties for violations of existing migration legislation. They have raised the upper limit for organizing illegal migration to fifteen years prison colony with a minimum sentence of two years. For fictitious registration of a foreigner, the maximum prison sentence has been increased from three to five years. Moreover, illegal or undocumented residence in Russia has become an aggravating circumstance in sentencing any crime.
Foreigners who marry Russian citizens must now wait three years for a temporary residence permit. Of note, regional authorities have actively embraced the right to impose restrictions on foreigners, prohibiting the employment of foreigners as taxi drivers, shopkeepers and chefs. These prohibitions exist in one out of every three Russian regions.
The terrorist attack on Moscow’s “Crocus City Hall” in March 2024 has resulted in a marked increase in anti-migrant legislative measures and a tightening of migration policy. Several citizens of Tajikistan are facing charges for this incident and in response law enforcement have begun conducting raids on immigrants from Central Asia, followed by deportations and bans on entry.
These developments have already had an impact on the number of immigrants coming to Russia. 5.4 million foreigners entered Russia in the first six months of 2024 – a decrease of 8.4% compared to 2023. Meanwhile, the number of foreigners expelled from Russia rose by 55% to a total of 65,000 people.
“My colleague from Tajikistan told me today that all the flights returning from Russia to Tajikistan are chock full of Tajik nationals being deported from Russia,” says Galiya Ibragimova.
Work force shortfall
One key issue which is often ignored in debates about migrants, is just how crucial immigration is for the Russian economy. Russia is experiencing a labour shortage – and not only for demographic reasons. Because of the war in Ukraine, there is now competition for workers between the civilian and the defence industry sectors. In 2023, Russian economists estimated that there was an overall deficit of approximately five million workers in the country, with no immediate prospects for improvement.
Vladimir Putin acknowledged this himself in his end of year press conference. Migration he said was “a sensitive subject” but Russia needed “hundreds of thousands” more workers. It was important, he went on, to “get the balance right” and to respect migrants rights while not creating a “burden” for ordinary Russians, or making them feel “uncomfortable.”
What he didn’t say was that Russia also needs soldiers to fight in the war in Ukraine, and here too migrant workers are proving very useful with many taking up the offer of citizenship in return for joining up for front-line duty in Ukraine.
“It’s clear from the all the statistics that there’s a huge demand for workers in Russia right now. Russia needs migrants,” says Galiya Ibragimova.
“And if Russia is really interested in ensuring that those migrants adapt then the country needs to find some more civilised approaches to help those migrants integrate and adapt to Russian values and to ensure that their children are also included in that process.”
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Original Russian version by Anastasia Jefremova, translated by Lawrence Sherwin
Updated and edited by Jenny Norton, with contributions from Ilia Kizirov
As a graduate of a Russian school in a national Soviet republic, I can clearly see the roots of this debate. Part of it comes from an education system overwhelmed with modern Russian ideology, which is in essence racist. In Soviet Union, I’ve been told, school curriculum in a national school was few years behind a Russian school. Some degrees were only available in Russian. 34 years on and the approach hasn’t changed, it seems.