Knuth Vollebek is concerned of Georgian schools in Abkhazia

Today in Sukhumi, Knuth Vollebek, Supreme Commissioner of the OSCE on National Minorities, and Indira Vardaniya, Minister of Education of Abkhazia, discussed the issues of teaching the Georgian language in schools of the Gali District and situation with Armenian schoolchildren.

Mr Vollebek expressed his special interest to teaching the Abkhazian language in Georgian schools of the Gali District. He noted that exactly one year ago, when he visited the first Gali school, pupils told him that they preferred to run their lessons in their native Georgian language, not in Russian.

Ms Vardaniya did not agree that children of the Gali District have no chance to learn their mother tongue and get education in Gali schools. "Even if they go to Russian school, they still study the Georgian language and literature, while rural schools are mainly Georgian," she noted.

According to her story, according to the law on the state language, all schools of Abkhazia study the Abkhazian language, and non-Abkhazian schools do it in simplified form. The history and geography of Abkhazia are taught in Russian at all the schools.

Knuth Vollebek, however, referred to Article 6 of the Constitution of Abkhazia and stated that any group of Abkhazian population shall have the right to communicate in its mother tongue.

The Minister said, in her turn, that not a single parent had ever complained to her Ministry against training in Russian in Gali schools.

Knuth Vollebek told journalists after the meeting: "I'm happy and satisfied with the approach of Abkhazian authorities to Armenian schools. But I can't state the same about Georgian ones. I'm somewhat concerned of lack of readiness to give chance to children to get training in Georgian.

When asked by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent whether mandatory teaching of the Abkhazian language in Georgian and Armenian schools is an encroachment on minorities' rights, the Supreme Commissioner answered in the negative. "I believe it very important that they study Abkhazian, and I think they should also study Russian."