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96 (58.5%) Yukaghirs and 95 Chukchis (78,5%) were studying their native
language. These figures were due to the lack of trained teachers, as well as
parents' reluctance to educate their children in their native language. At our
first conference in 2008, however, Feodosia Gabysheva, Minister of Education
of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), came up with quite different figures: the
Even language was studied as native language by 2275 people; the Evenk
language by 3283, the Yukagir language by 168; the Chukchi language by 145;
the Dolgan language by 252. The number of people exercising the right to
study their native language is growing each year.
25 years ago, when I was heading the Local Department of Public Education
of the Yaroslavsky District of Yakutsk and the Urban Department of Public
Education of Yakutsk, we have introduced a rule to create Yakut-speaking
groups alongside Russian-speaking ones in every newly built kindergarten. We
started create conditions for the children of indigenous peoples living in urban
areas to study their native language and to get education in it.
As Minister of Education, I ensured in 1997 that Even, Evenk, Yukaghir, Chukchi
and Dolgan children were no longer obliged to study Yakut language (according
to the then-existing curriculum, these children had to be polyglots, as they had
to study two official languages, Russian and Yakut, their native language and a
foreign one, e.g. English). Being in charge of education, I saw my task in helping
to create the best conditions for the development of each language and gradual
formation of the need to use both official languages in full compliance with rights
of a citizen to choose the language of study and understanding that nothing
should be mandatory when it comes to human rights.
We clearly understood that the state is obliged to create conditions for
efficient pre-primary education and in 1997 the Ministry of Education of the
Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) obliged pre-school educational institutions to
admit children from the age of 5. Within a limited time, all preschool teachers
were trained to teach reading (from the age of 5). Already in 1999, 93% of all
five-year old children in the republic (100% in some areas) were attending preschool
educational institutions. And in 2000, children who started their first
grade were already able to read, and, most importantly, had the ability to learn
in a group and live in the society.
In 2000, through the personal efforts by Vyacheslav Shtyrov, President of OJSC
ALROSA, computer equipment worth $2 million was donated by ALROSA to
schools of the republic. Sakhatelecom company, then led by Nikolai Nikolaev,
granted schools with a 3 year long "guest" Internet access. Such support helped
to make a breakthrough in the education system of Yakutia.
One of the major indications of the progress achieved by all school teachers
and officials of the Ministry of Education was the fact that in 2003 Yakutia
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