Problem of Moldovan schools in Transnistria may sharpen again
Transnistrian president Igor Smirnov maintains that foreign schools in the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic (PMR) may function only according to the programs of the region's education ministry.
Smirnov held a meeting with Transnistrian minister of foreign affairs Vladimir Yastrebchak today and reiterated (after a very long period of silence on this delicate issue) that "any foreign school may indeed work in Transnistria if it can find enough pupils for this, but only according to the PMR school programs and legislation".
"Therefore please tell Mr. Philip Remler [Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova], who is raising this question, that we in our schools do not cultivate hatred to the Russian people or Russian Army, as this is done in Moldovan schools at teaching the history of Romania. Isn't it so? Now, just imagine a situation that we will go tomorrow to Mr. Remler's native country [the USA] and will open our school there that would function according to Transnistrian laws. What nonsense it would be, wouldn't it?" said Igor Smirnov.
Infotag's dossier: In Transnistria, there are 5 lyceums and 2 gymnasiums [~ grammar schools] that are 100% funded by the Government of Moldova use the programs of the Moldovan Ministry of Education, including primarily the Latin alphabet at teaching the Romanian language. Accordingly, they use textbooks made exclusively in the Latin alphabet. The Tiraspol authorities keep on maintaining that there exists no Romanian language as such, so there are no grounds for using the Latin script for writing the Moldavian language.
Presently, these schools have 1,938 pupils, but the Transnistrian authorities regard their activities as unlawful and use all possible measures to upset their work, demanding to teach the children by using Transnistria's programs and use the Cyrillic alphabet at writing.
In 2004, Tiraspol closed down the Moldovan schools, and they could restart working with great pain and only after the interference by the Russian Federation, the OSCE and other international organizations. Yet the Tiraspol authorities won their little victory in that war: they succeeded in ousting some of the schools from their cozy buildings into other ones - shabby, small, cold and not equipped for studying.
In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights recognized that the said children from the Transnistrian region were subjected to violation of their right to study by using their native language and the Latin alphabet. The claim lodged with the ECHR was signed by 170 residents of the Transnistrian region, who thus decided to sue both Moldova and Russia for the said violation.
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