Lithuania should gradually phase out the teaching of Russian as a second foreign language, according to Jolanta Urbanovič, presidential adviser on education.
“Clearly, the current situation may not be a happy one but we cannot expect a very sudden change, because students have already made their choices, and we need to ensure continuity. On the other hand, we need to ensure that we can pick from other foreign languages, like French, German or others, and we also need teachers for that,” she told the radio Žinių Radijas on Tuesday.
Read more: Latvia plans to scrap Russian language classes, Lithuania may follow suit
Russian is among the most popular foreign languages taught in Lithuanian schools. However, since the start of the war in Ukraine, some politicians have suggested to restrict Russian language teaching.
The Ministry of Education of Latvia earlier announced plans to limit the choice of foreign languages in schools from the 2026-2027 academic year, excluding Russian from the list of options.
Lithuania’s education authorities have indicated that they will recommend schools to drop Russian as a second foreign language.
According to Urbanovič, the number of students in Lithuania who pick to study Russian remains high, although it is going down.
“The situation is gradually changing, and we can see that this year’s choices show a different trend, as more pupils choose German, French. Clearly, it’s also the task for the ministry to balance that, to make sure that the choices change, to ensure that we have that balance,” she said.
While English is the most popular first foreign language with Lithuanian students, Russian is the most common choice as a second foreign language.
Based on the Education Ministry’s data, 14,971 sixth-grade students picked to start studying Russian this year.
Meanwhile, 21.6 percent (4,765 students) picked German (15.4 percent last year) and 8.2 percent (1,814) picked French (6.8 percent last year).
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