Fewer and fewer students in Lithuanian schools choose Russian as a second foreign language, and Spanish, French and German are coming to the first lines; it is expected that the demand for teachers of these languages will increase significantly in the near future.
High school student Morta Čičelytė has been studying Spanish since the sixth grade. She said that she finds Spanish very beautiful, and she is also interested in the culture, which was the main reason for starting to learn the language. Morta’s parents said that until a few years ago, their school did not offer them to learn Spanish, and the family took the initiative on its own. The girl’s mother said that they understood that no matter how enthusiastic a student was, no one would teach Spanish to one child, so they convinced her daughter’s classmates, and it turned out that 13 or 14 students wanted to learn Spanish.
Ery Martin, a Spanish teacher at a school in Kaunas, said that Spanish is becoming increasingly popular. She added that more native Spanish teachers will be needed.
According to Deputy Minister of Education Jonas Petkevičius, in 2023/2024, approximately 2,500 students chose Spanish, while in the 2024/2025 academic year, more than 6,000 students chose it. The politician noted that more and more students are abandoning Russian as a second foreign language. The decline is particularly sharp after 2022, and this year only 43.5% of students chose to study Russian. The changes are particularly noticeable in Vilnius, where out of six thousand 6th grade students, only 400 have chosen Russian. There are 108 schools in Lithuania where Russian is no longer offered as a second foreign language. Consequently,
a large number of Russian language teachers are currently undergoing retraining.
Mindaugas Nefas, Vice-Chancellor of the Education Academy at Vytautas Magnus University, said that attitudes changed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when Lithuanians realized that they had to distance themselves from the “Russian world”, and this also applies to schools. “As schools began to phase out Russian and offer pupils alternatives, it was only natural that lesson hours for these teachers were significantly reduced,” the academic said.
Dainius Žvirdauskas, head of the Association of School Principals, said that, in addition to Spanish, German, French and Italian are also among the most popular languages. Petkevičius, in turn, informed that the Russian language exam will no longer be among the final tests before graduation.
Read the entire article in English here: https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2633229/spanish-other-languages-gain-ground-as-russian-falls-out-of-favour-in-lithuanian-schools
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