BT: Nearly half of Belarusian schools use Belarusian as the language of instruction. Here’s what’s misleading about that claim

On May 25, 2025, “Main Air” on News.by showed a segment about the status of the Belarusian language in Belarus.

“About 42% of general secondary education institutions—schools, gymnasiums, and lyceums—in Belarus provide instruction in Belarusian. Mandatory education in both official languages is outlined in the Belarusian Education Code.”

However, the Education Code only guarantees parents the right to choose one of the two state languages for their child’s education. In practice, exercising that right can be challenging. In 2023, according to the education minister, 40% of schools in Belarus were Belarusian-language schools. However, most of them are located in rural areas and small towns. Nationwide, fewer than one in ten students are actually taught in Belarusian. Over the past decade, the number of children studying in Belarusian has nearly halved. In Minsk, for example, fewer than 2% of first graders started school in Belarusian in 2024 — just 17 classes out of 860.