The education system in Belarus is increasingly adapting to the economic needs of the state: the number of state-funded university places with mandatory, university-controlled post-graduation work contracts is growing, and additional obstacles are being created for obtaining education abroad. At the same time, regulations on private tutoring are being tightened, and ideological influence in educational institutions is expanding. What else has happened in Belarusian education this spring — in the ISANS report.
In February, we observed the lowest share of ideology on the Ministry’s resources since the beginning of the academic year: 18% on the official website and 28% on the official Telegram channel of the Ministry of Education. Recall that by the end of 2024 every third news on the resources of the Ministry of Education had an ideological orientation, and in January these indicators of the share of ideology exceeded 40% of all news.
But if the decrease in the share of ideology on the official resources of the Ministry of Education in February corresponded to the general decrease in the ideologization of Belarusian education, in March these two processes did not depend on each other. On the official website of the Ministry, 7 out of 22 news (32%) had ideological coloring, and in the official Telegram channel there were 43 out of 166 such news items (26%), which is only slightly higher than in February.
At the same time, throughout March we observed a significant strengthening of ideologization of Belarusian education at all its levels. If to speak about the general state of Belarusian education, in March it was characterized by the following features and phenomena:
1. Creation of additional obstacles by the state for Belarusians to get foreign education.
2. Continuation of the policy of complete subordination of the educational sphere to the state and destruction of independent educational initiatives.
3. Continuation of the policy of subordinating education to the needs of the economy.
4. Imposition of the personality cult of Aliaksandr Lukashenka in Belarusian education.
5. Significant strengthening of ideologization of Belarusian education.
6. Slight decrease in the rates of militarization of Belarusian education.
7. Intensification of international educational cooperation with China.
8. Growth of the influence of the Aliaksei Talai Foundation in Belarusian education.
9. Dissemination of Russian propaganda theses in Belarusian education.
You can read or download the whole monitoring of education in RB for March 2025 at this link.
Материал доступен на русском языке: Вузы подстраивают под нужды экономики. Беларусская система образования в марте 2025
