Romanian will be taught at kindergartens attended by Russian-speaking children

The parents, educators and managers of kindergartens where Russian is a language of teaching asked the Education Ministry to include activities to teach Romanian in the curriculum of preschool education institutions, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to a communiqué from the Ministry of Education, the parents explained that they want their children to easier integrate into the educative environment through the Romanian language. Minister of Education Mihail Shleahtitski stressed the importance of the children knowing Romanian. The Romanian language should be taught by educations through activities suitable for the children’s age. Deputy Minister of Education Tatiana Poting said a pilot program to study the Romanian language in kindergartens would perfectly fit the pilot multilingual training program implemented in schools and a similar project carried out in kindergartens in Gagauzia. “To be efficient, the given project should be implemented gradually,” she stated. Tatiana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb, head of the Chisinau Division of Education, Youth and Sport, said that multilingual training has been practiced in a number of kindergartens in the capital city for five years. “In some of the groups, the children are involved in Romanian teaching activities, while in other groups there are by two educators – one who speaks Romanian and another one who speaks Russian. Such a decision was taken at the request of some of the parents,” she stated. As a result of discussions, it was decided to set up a working group consisting of representatives of the Ministry of Education, the Chisinau Division of Education, Youth and Sport, kindergarten directors, and parents who will work out a strategy for teaching Romanian in schools for students speaking other languages than Romanian and a viable mechanism for implementing it.