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UNICEF: Educating Minority Children

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  • UNICEF: Educating Minority Children

    EDUCATING MINORITY CHILDREN

    By Onnik Krikorian /UNICEF Armenia

    FIOLETOVO, Lori Region - It's not often that you encounter a village
    that makes you feel like an `outsider' in Armenia but this is one of the
    few that do, and in every sense of the word. It's not that the residents
    of this ethnically homogenous village made up of Russian Molokans don't
    like visitors. It's simply that their presence is not considered
    essential for Fioletovo to survive and prosper.

    The Molokans are Russians that split from the Russian Orthodox Church in
    the 17th Century. Fioletovo, a village inhabited by less than 1,500
    people, is the largest community outside of Yerevan. Their total
    population in Armenia stands at just 5,000 although 14 years earlier,
    when independence was declared, there were approximately 12,000 Molokans
    living in the republic. Since then, most have left.

    To call the community "closed" isn't something of an overstatement. In
    fact, it's not too far from the truth. Apart from venturing out of
    Fioletovo and nearby Lermontovo to sell their famous sauerkraut at
    market, the village instead resembles a traditional Russian enclave cut
    off from the rest of Armenia. You might even be forgiven for thinking
    you had entered a settlement somewhere deep in the heart of Russia.

    Many consider the Molokans as something akin to the Amish in the United
    States.

    True, the Molokans use motorized vehicles but otherwise, alcohol is
    forbidden as is marriage outside the community. And, for the more strict
    adherents to the faith, so is television. Streets are impeccably clean
    with every other house sporting a fresh coat of paint. The men wear long
    beards that haven't been cut in years while most of the women cover
    their heads.

    Their fiercely blonde and blue-eyed children are unable to communicate
    in any language other than Russian.

    And herein lies the problem. As idyllic and refreshing as the scene
    might be, the situation in terms of education is just the opposite. In
    fact, according to a recent survey of education in national minority
    communities by the Hazarashen Armenian Centre of Ethnological Studies,
    "Molokans continue retaining [their] virtues over education and thus,
    the inertia of perceiving education as secondary continues."

    The report, conducted for The Ministry of Education and the National
    Statistics Service of the Republic of Armenia was made possible through
    the financial and technical support of UNICEF. It follows a generic
    survey on education in Armenia held during 2001. Then, UNICEF discovered
    that school drop out rates for national minority communities, in
    addition to those made up of refugees, were twice the national average.

    As a result, one of the recommendations from that 2001 report was to
    conduct a new assessment but specifically focusing on national minority
    communities. Although Armenia is considered a largely mono-ethnic
    country, 2.2 percent of the population comprises ethnic groups such as
    Yezidis, Assyrians, Russians and Jews. The report chose to focus on the
    three largest in the republic - the Yezidis and Kurds, the Assyrians,
    and the Russian Molokans.

    "We discovered that there were no problems whatsoever in the Assyrian
    community," says Marine Soukhudyan, UNICEF's Education Project Officer.
    "Historically, as well as culturally, the Assyrian community values
    education highly and does everything it can to ensure that their
    children receive a normal education. Of course, there is still a problem
    with the availability of textbooks and this is a serious issue for every
    minority community in Armenia."

    Like the Molokans, the Assyrians receive much of their own education in
    Russian but the textbooks that exist are mainly leftover from the soviet
    era and do not comply with the requirements of the new curriculum. There
    is also an insufficient quantity of teaching materials in minority
    languages but Soukhudyan says that the National Institute of Education
    in Armenia is currently contacting intellectuals within each community
    to address this problem.

    However, she says that there are more serious concerns. "For example,
    during the last 15 years, only a handful of children from minority
    communities entered higher education," she explains. "We also discovered
    that in Yezidi communities, children attend school for two to five
    months on average per year. At first, we thought this was connected to
    poverty but later, we discovered that this reflected an attitude within
    the community towards education."

    "With the exception of the Assyrians, the Molokan and Yezidi communities
    prioritize labor," continues Soukhudyan. "There is also a great
    difference between attitudes towards education for girls compared to
    boys. In many communities, grade 8 is considered the end of the
    education cycle. This is mandatory under Armenian law but the real
    picture is hidden away by many other factors."

    Children from national minority communities are instead expected to tend
    the fields and shepherd livestock rather than attend school. The
    UNICEF-funded report also noted that some Molokan families have even
    been known to pull their children out of school as early as the second
    or third grade.

    "Parents think that 3 years of education is enough for a child to know
    how to sell milk, cabbage and count 10 eggs which means that the child
    will be able to earn money," says the report, summarizing the attitude
    of Molokans in Lermontovo towards education. "Having a full stomach is
    better than having an education."

    Education in minority communities is therefore seasonal and governed by
    the agricultural calendar. At the same time, because teachers in rural
    communities are also engaged in farming, they have no interest in
    recording low attendance figures because they too are absent. Soukhudyan
    calls it a `mutually beneficial situation for both teachers and the
    families of schoolchildren."

    Indeed, when the survey team for the report visited Lermontovo in August
    during harvest time, there was not a single child in the village. Even
    pre-school children had been sent to help their parents in the fields.
    Every year, they work there until mid October and sometimes, the
    beginning of November.

    Even so, school work is still marked as "satisfactory" although children
    have learned little or next to nothing. In some cases, especially in
    Yezidi communities, pupils and teachers cannot even communicate with
    each other. In these communities, while the teachers are Armenian, each
    new intake of children from Yezidi families can hardly understand
    anything other than their mother tongue.

    "Textbooks are also in Armenian but it takes two or three years before
    Yezidi children can understand the language," says Soukhudyan. "Until
    then, the child's development is frustrated and, actually, prevented.
    There are some Yezidi teachers, of course, but as they generally come
    from other villages, there is also the problem of transportation,
    especially during the winter months."

    Instead, Armenian teachers sometimes use body language instead of words
    to "explain and impart knowledge to students."

    And while adverse socio-economic conditions faced by rural settlements,
    as well as the poor upkeep of village schools, are detrimental to
    education, the main problem is cultural. This is especially true for
    females. "There are those who even consider education dangerous for a
    girl," says the report. "They reason that an educated woman may have
    ideas and not be as obedient to men."

    However, despite these obstacles, there are children in minority
    communities that would like to enter higher education. In the Yezidi
    village of Zovuni, for example, one girl cries as she tells of her
    inability to study French when she finishes school. Another Yezidi girl
    says that if given the opportunity, she would like to study, and later
    teach, Armenian language and literature.

    Key to effectively addressing this issue, however, will be to launch a
    public awareness campaign highlighting the importance of education among
    national minority communities. The Governor of the Aragatsotn region in
    Armenia has already committed himself to supporting UNICEF in this
    endeavor. In particular, there will be a specific focus on teaching
    Yezidi and Molokan children the Armenian language from an early age,
    especially in pre-schools.

    UNICEF will also supply 100 schools in 5 regions of Armenia with "school
    in a box" kits that contain essential supplies to meet the needs of
    8,000 schoolchildren. The kits will also be supplied to vulnerable
    Armenian communities, especially those situated in depressed border regions.

    "It is my dream to become a doctor," says one girl in Lermontovo," but
    how can a Molokan enter university? We can't receive a higher education
    because we don't know Armenian. Nobody here does."

    For more information:
    Emil Sahakyan, Communication Officer,UNICEF Armenia
    Tel: (374 1) 523-546,
    E-Mail: [email protected]

    ---
    http://www.unicef.org/armenia/reallives_2345.html
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