Education Minister: OSCE made no recommendations to change law regarding national minority education

The minister told BNS on Friday that Vollebaek's recommendations were received a month ago. The OSCE commissioner was in Lithuania a few times over the last six months and also visited Poland. Vollebaek's confidential recommendations regarding the situation of the Lithuanian minority in Poland have also been presented to the Polish government.

"The decisions we have made over the past six months in connection to the implementation of the Law on Education are largely a reflection of Vollebaek's remarks. However, we did not do this in response to the recommendation. Our decisions came before the recommendations because we hold a sensitive stance on the issues related to more intensive teaching of the Lithuanian language in schools of national minorities and, particularly, related to the introduction of the new schemes," Steponavičius said commenting on the recommendations.

"I can say only one thing. Commissioner Vollebaek's recommendations do not contain direct calls to amend the Law on Education," the minister said, adding that the recommendations were only meant for internal use by state institutions.

"I can only say one thing: I will soon inform the OSCE high commissioner on national minorities, Mr. Vollebaek, about how our decisions in Lithuania, regarding education of national minorities, match his recommendations," Steponavičius said.

"But I would like to stress that Vollebaek's recommendations cover not only education but also spelling of place and personal names, property restitution – the whole spectrum of national minority issues. Education is only one of the issues," the education minister underlined.

Nearly a year ago, Lithuania's parliament passed a new version of the Law on Education, which, among other things, stipulates a new teaching scheme of the Lithuanian language in national minority schools, including teaching of more subjects in Lithuanian and unifying the tasks of the graduation exam of the Lithuanian language as of 2013.

Nevertheless, the Polish minority demands restoration of the earlier scheme.

Lithuania 's government maintains that the new model is among then most moderate in Europe, noting that other countries, including Poland, had enforced analogous provisions years ago.