September in Belarusian education is traditionally associated with the beginning of the academic year at all levels of education. At the same time, the first month of the new academic year sets certain trends, which will then be viewed throughout the whole annual period. According to the results of consideration of the main educational trends, tendencies in international educational cooperation, review of ideologization and militarization of each level of Belarusian education, we can conclude that September was rich enough for various events which are connected with ideologization of the educational process. The sharp strengthening of ideologization of Belarusian education in September is also evidenced by the statistical data of the official resources of the Ministry of Education: on the official site of the Ministry 10 out of 28 news (36%) had ideological coloring, and on the official Telegram channel this figure made up 93 out of 267 (35%) news. Thus, every third news item on the official resources of the Ministry of Education had an ideological context.
In general, based on the results of the research, we can identify the following features characterizing the development of the Belarusian education system in September:
1. Since the very beginning of the month, educational institutions in Belarus have been included in the propaganda campaign, which is related to the 2025 elections. Despite the fact that the election campaign has not even been announced yet and the official date of the elections has not been set, pupils and students are constantly involved in propaganda activities that touch upon the topic of the upcoming elections.
2. Throughout most of September, we observed constant ideological activities at all levels of education. First of all, it is connected with the mass imposition of the ideological holiday People’s Unity Day.
3. An interesting feature of September was the noticeable activation of pro-governmental youth organizations and the work of the authorities with the pro-governmental youth activists.
4. As in the case of prosecutors and pro-government youth organizations, the activation of the Orthodox Church has been noticeable at all levels of education since the start of the academic year. This includes all the traditional forms of the past years: priests talking to pupils and students, young people visiting churches and participating in church events.
5. The process of militarization in Belarusian education during September has moved to the second place in comparison with ideologization. However, it cannot be said that the introduction of the paramilitary component into the educational process decreased.
6. A notable phenomenon of September was the intensification of the authorities’ activities to establish total control over the educational sphere.
7. In September, Russia and China were again the largest partners of Belarus in international educational cooperation.
8. In September, Belarusian education witnessed processes aimed at spreading Russian propaganda among young people, as well as at strengthening cooperation with the occupied territories of Ukraine.
