Resolution of the Protest Action

President of the Republic of Lithuania, J.E.D. Grybauskaitė

RESOLUTION OF THE PROTEST ACTION

2nd September 2011

We, the participants of the protest rally, parents and school children of Polish and other national minority schools in Lithuania, declare that using all legally available means: – Hundreds of letters were sent on behalf of the parents, pupils, parent-teacher associations and schools councils to the supreme state authorities of Lithuania: the President, the Speaker of the Seimas, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education and Science; 60.000 signatures of the  representatives of national minorities were collected during the protest against the draft of the new Education Act; the protest rally in front of the Ministry of Education and Science of Lithuania, with the resolution addressed to the Minister of Education, the protest rally in front of the head office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania with the resolution on behalf of the participants; a series of protests in front of the U.S. and Hungary Embassies in Lithuania – we have expressed our opposition against the implementation of the top-down decision to teach chosen subjects exclusively in Lithuanian language in the schools of national minorities, in kindergartens, primary schools and secondary schools, which is against the principles of democracy.

Lack of any response from the supreme authorities of the Republic of Lithuania to the lawful demands of the national minorities in Lithuania, forced us to convene today’s meeting and present our demands once again.

We demand:

• Annulment of the regulations of the recently passed Education Act, as well as the general education curriculum concerning the education of national minorities, during the nearest, autumn session of the Seimas;
• Annulment of standardization of the native and state Lithuanian language examination at secondary school final exams;
• Restoration of the Polish-language exam to the list of mandatory secondary school graduation exams;
• Renouncement of the discriminatory proposal to preserve the Lithuanian schools at the expense of the Polish schools.

We, the participants of the protest rally endorse the demands of the parents and students who participate in the general strike in schools.

We, the participants of the protest rally, request the supreme authorities of the Republic of Lithuania:

the President, Speaker of the Seimas and the Prime Minister to re-familiarise themselves with the presented demands and take into account the stance of the minority communities that has been repeatedly expressed.

We declare that, using all the available legal appeals, we retain our right to take further steps in order to ensure the implementation of the constitutional guarantees to teach our children in their native language, to preserve the hitherto existing mode of the secondary school final exams on Lithuanian language, to restore the Polish-language exam to the list of mandatory secondary school graduation exams and to increase the student’s basket funding for schools with minority language instruction up to 50 per cent. We demand the abolition of the Article 30.8 of the New Education Act, which introduces a surprising discrimination of Polish secondary school students, assuming that the Polish schools in rural localities, which did not have the required numbers of pupils must be liquidated, while the Lithuanian schools (even with a smaller number of students) must be preserved.

2011-09-02 VILNIUS

http://kurierwilenski.lt/2011/09/03/rezolucja-akcji-protestacyjnej/

Tłumaczenie: Eliza Łuszczewska, w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Czlowieka, www.efhr.eu

Translation by Eliza Łuszczewska, as part of vocational training in The European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu