The Belarusian Ministry of Education has officially published departmental resolution No. 313 on National Legal Internet Portal. The resolution was signed by the Education Minister on September 29, 2023 and is set to begin today.
Resolution No.313 establishes the high school course “Military Translation” which allows Belarusian youths to learn English for the purposes of:
“Various situations of foreign language communication…extract information from a text on military topics, read the contents of military documents and convey their essence in Russian, translate military and military-technical texts from English into Russian, carry out two-way translation of a conversation or interrogation of a prisoner of war, and also identify by insignia American and British military, their ranks and categories.”
The course is 69 academic hours and is available to grade school children from 10-11th grade. While not a groundbreaking development in the Soviet-style public educational system of Belarus, this national embrace of an anti-US/UK educational program does further demonstrate the cultural polarization of the former bloc nation from the West, especially in the midst of the Ukraine War.
