Russian schools may begin teaching Arabic

The head of Rosobrnadzor, Anzor Musaev, announced that today the possible introduction of Arabic into the school curriculum is being considered. According to him, the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia made a proposal to teach this language as a separate subject.

Musaev emphasized that Russia is open to the East and is ready to cooperate with other countries. He also noted that the UAE Ministry of Education is interested in opening Russian schools. The head of Rosobrnadzor emphasizes that Arabic can be added to the list of Unified State Exam subjects, just like Chinese. Ridus.ru writes about this with reference to the Kommersant publication.

According to the Ministry of Education, 5 universities in the Russian Federation have programs for teaching Arabic, and over 500 students are already studying it. Representatives of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia believe that the introduction of Arabic into the school curriculum is relevant both for regions with a large number of Muslims and for large cities.

Dean of Moscow State Linguistic University Ekaterina Pokholkova believes that introducing the Arabic language in schools makes sense. She notes parents’ interest in this language and the possible emergence of competition with Chinese.

However, there are also opponents to the introduction of Arabic in Russian schools. HRC member Kirill Kabanov fears that this could divide the peoples of Russia. He is also concerned about the possibility of the spread of extremist and radical Islamic ideas through Arabic-language resources. However, Natalya Dubinina, deputy dean of the RUDN Faculty of Philology, is confident that cases of conversion to Islam associated with the study of the Arabic language are very rare, and extremist propaganda can be prevented with the help of federal educational standards and trained specialists.