Issues of studying the history and geography of Ossetia in the Republic’s schools in the Ossetian language were discussed at a meeting attended by President Anatoly Bibilov, Prime Minister Eric Pukhaev, Minister of Education and Science Nathalie Gassieva, representatives of the scientific community, history and geography teachers of South Ossetia, authors of the publication of textbooks, the press service of the President and the government.
Anticipating the discussion, Natalie Gassieva has noted that today the Ossetian language is receiving close attention from the leadership of the Republic and that the Ministry of Education and Science intends to competently and correctly approach the proposed transition system.
“We are all well aware that, ideally, it is necessary to teach the history and geography of Ossetia in Ossetian. Both in history and in geography it is proposed to publish one bilingual book, so that the teacher can compare and somehow work with children, or publish books separately in Ossetian language.
At the same time, the Ministry of education and science proposes to organize Ossetian language courses for teachers of history and geography – thus we will gradually move to teaching in Ossetian.
At the same time, we suggest sending a letter to the South Ossetian State University to increase the number of teaching hours in the Ossetian language at the university, make specialization in both Ossetian and Russian, and also increase the number of special courses in the Ossetian language. We are well aware of the concerns of practitioners: I don’t want to simplify the language of teaching, naturally, there are still a lot of terms ...
It takes time to get through this. That is, ideally, over time, when we have already conducted courses, we will increase control over the fact that our native Ossetian speech sounded at the lessons,” she said.
For his part, the President emphasized the importance of publishing textbooks on the history and geography of Ossetia in the Ossetian language.
“South and North Ossetia are inseparable from each other. We do our best to unite our people, and we have one history. The book on the history of Ossetia has already been published and introduced to schools. Another thing is that we must make some corrections in it and supplement with materials on South Ossetia,” said Anatoly Bibilov.
He urged to finalize the already collected material, to provide it for familiarization to the relevant specialists and later in a narrow circle to return to the discussion of the issues under consideration today.
The Presidential Plenipotentiary for post-conflict settlement, Candidate of Hstory Murat Dzhioev also expressed his authoritative opinion, proposing to publish a textbook on the history of South Ossetia as a supplement to the basic textbook on the history of Ossetia. And the Candidate of Philology, Gatsyr Plity, noted the importance of in-depth study of the Ossetian language in educational institutions.
