In the framework of permanent cooperation with United Nations bodies and officials, our Association informed the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Ms. Farida Shaheed, for her annual thematic report, “Curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment at the service of the right to education”.
Our submission, prepared by Andrii Chvaliuk, Anna Prykhodko and other experts and published at the UN official web-sources online, stressed that in all Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine, including the Crimea, the so-called “Russian standards of education” were established that reject the issues of human rights education and includes strong illegal Russia’s militaristic propaganda, propaganda of so-called “priority” of “Russian world” in standards of Nazi policy, hate speech against ethnic Ukrainians and elements of racial discrimination, hate speech against any minority group and illegal ban for to freedom of expression, association and assembly.
The ARC submission added that the militarization of Russia-occupied Crimea makes a strong negative impact on issues of discrimination in the education process. The aggressor’s illegal “administrations” in the occupied territories are urgently fulfilling the criminal instruction to “create cells” for the so-called “Russian movement of children and youth” to enforce the degree of the corresponding criminal aggressor’s Nazi and war propaganda and hate speech against minorities.
With reference to the Report of the UN Secretary-General A/HRC/56/69, ARC reminded that the occupying “authorities” pressured teachers, sometimes with physical violence and threats of violence, to accept the new “curriculum” and teach classes in the Russian language. At the same time, occupying “authorities” targeted teachers providing online classes following the Ukrainian curriculum.
The ARC submission stressed that since 2014, Russia-controlled schools in the Crimea minimized the quantity of lessons of Ukrainian language and literature and, in some years even before 2022, reduced it to zero level in any “school curriculum”; it was determined by the Judgment of the International Court of Justice in case 166 to be a violation by Russia the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
ARC submission added that in occupied territory, Russian occupying “authorities” continued to interfere with educational processes for Russian imperialistic goals via “summer camps” and changes to the 2025-2026 “school curriculum” that reinforced Russian “patriotic education” for children as young as three years old, while militarized “competitive activities” were held for children under the oversight of soldiers from the Russian armed forces.
We reminded that the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, at its 78th session, stressed the same concerns on that issue in its Concluding Observations E/C.12/RUS/CO/7.
The ARC submission added that the occupiers also declared the use of the MAX messenger, which is completely under the control of the Russian punishers, “mandatory” in school chats and promised to introduce “behavior grades” as a form of repression of unwanted students.
The ARC submission summarized that the UN research must pay more attention to the situation with school curriculums in zones of interstate conflicts and foreign occupation, like modern Crimea and areas of Russia-controlled Ukraine’s mainland, especially regarding gender and racial dimensions, rights of children, indigenous rights, rights to life, health, and privacy, and the right to sustainable development.
