MINSK: For three years, teachers at the Yakub Kolos lycee have been leading their pupils from one secret address to another.
Moving mostly between private homes, the 90 pupils are defying the high school’s official closure in 2003 to try to encourage free thinking and foster Belarussian — the language associated with the small opposition in the ex-Soviet state.
“The history course we teach has nothing to do with the version drafted by Belarussian authorities,” said Vladimir Kolos, director of the school. “And we conduct classes in good Belarussian. That’s rare these days.”
Officials say the school building was closed as part of a move to consolidate facilities and save money. Staff believe it was shut down because they broke away from the official curriculum taught at state schools and nurtured Belarussian.
They decided to keep their classes going, and resorted to the cat-and-mouse game after attempts to rent public halls led to confrontations or bureaucratic tangles with authorities.
Teachers found that halls were mysteriously booked, unavailable or found to have failed fire or safety inspections.
No one now discloses where the classes are held.
Running the gauntlet of inspectors and Education Ministry officials has become commonplace for these teachers in Belarus, ruled by President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994.
The opposition and Western countries accuse him of rounding up rivals, closing down media, rigging elections and hounding independent cultural associations. Children starting state school are given a book entitled “Belarus — my homeland” featuring four imposing photographs of the president.
Re-elected in March in a poll denounced in the West as rigged, Lukashenko has reintroduced the Soviet notion of obligatory ideology courses for both state and private schools.
However, the Yakub Kolos school helps its teenage pupils challenge this official ideology.
“When we went to ordinary schools, we weren’t free to express our opinions,” said pupil Oleg Volotovsky. “That could get you into trouble.” For Elina Kazarskaya, whose two daughters attend the school, “there is no school in Belarus like this lycee. Its graduates get into the most prestigious universities.”
Lukashenko routinely derides the Belarussian language.
Now associated mostly with academics and, more important, with the liberal and nationalist movements that denounce his administration, Belarussian is an eastern Slav language mid-way between Russian and Ukrainian.—Reuters
