Starting from this academic year, schools in Belarus have new rules – from a ban on telephones to restrictions on the teaching profession. In general, the education system is becoming more and more ideologized, and pro-Russian influence is reaching the institutional level. For more details, see the iSANS report for August.
In our July monitoring study, we noted that Belarusian education was characterized by record low levels of ideologization and militarization in 2025. This was primarily due to the fact that the educational process was not conducted at the vocational, secondary specialized, and higher education levels because of the summer holidays. In addition, the most important event in July was the admission campaign at universities, which pushed the issues of ideologization and militarization into the background.
One of the indicators of the slowdown in the pace of ideologization and militarization in July was a noticeable decrease in the number of ideologically oriented news items in the resources of the Ministry of Education. While in April-June every third news item in the agency’s resources was ideologically oriented, in July this figure dropped to 25%.
The trend toward a decrease in the ideologization of the news agenda in the resources of the Ministry of Education continued in August: on the official website of the Ministry of Education, only 3 out of 24 news items (13%) had an ideological slant, and in the official Telegram channel, there were 30 such news items out of 152 (20%). For the first time in a long time, the share of ideologically oriented news in the agency’s resources was less than 20% of the total number of news items.
At the same time, August is interesting due to the fact that the Ministry of Education publishes new recommendations and requirements for educational institutions for the new academic year. We are convinced that the trend towards a slowdown in the ideologization and militarization of Belarusian education is temporary, and that the Ministry of Education’s guidance documents will show that a new round of ideological and militarized activities awaits all levels of education in the new academic year.
Based on the results of our monitoring study, we can say that in August, Belarusian education was characterized by the following features:
1. New requirements and decisions by the Ministry of Education aimed at ideologizing and militarizing Belarusian education.
2. Imposition of pro-government and pro-Russian ideology in the school history curriculum.
3. Rapid increase in passing scores for fee-paying education in Belarusian universities.
4. Subordination of the education system to Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s wishes
5. Expansion of the network of law enforcement educational institutions.
6. The Ministry of Education has finalized its plans to reform master’s programs.
7. Formalization of the ban on the use of mobile phones by school students throughout the school day.
8. Continued low levels of ideologization in Belarusian education.
9. Maintaining low pace of militarization in Belarusian education.
10. The dominant positions of Russia and China in the field of international educational cooperation and further actions aimed at isolating Belarusians from the opportunity to obtain a European education.
11. New opportunities for Belarusian youth to study at higher education institutions in Russia.
12. Continuation of the trend of attracting Belarusian students, young people, and young professionals to educational and introductory trips to Russia.
13. Launch of the Russian Engineering School project in Belarus.
14. The unrecognized Luhansk People’s Republic and the Belarusian education system.
You can read or download the whole monitoring of education in Belarus for August 2025 at this link.
Материал доступен на русском языке: Как изменилась школа Беларуси в новом учебном году — обзор за август 2025
