Ministry of Education

Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic

MD 3300, PMR, Tiraspol, 27 Mira Street

office: 2 22 29, tel. /fax 2 34 97, bank account 69120927

To Mr. RolfEkeus

Supreme Commissar,

Ethnic Minorities Issues Officer,

OSCE

STATEMENT

by the Ministry of Education,

Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, on the question of children's educational rights insurance

Citizens of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic are guaranteed the right of education'in accord with the common international norms specified by the Constitution of our state. In the system of general education (which is compulsory as stated in Article 41 of the PMR Constitution) this right is being manifested in 183 educational establishments, including 33 secondary schools based on the Moldavian language and 16 Russian-Moldavian-based secondary schools. The overall of 11,200 children out of 79,000 schoolchildren in the country are trained in the Moldavian language. All of the educational institutions in Pridnestrovie have been accredited and perform their trainings according to the state standards, which are equivalent to the standards in the CIS countries.

However, there are 6 non-governmental educational institutions in the territory of the republic which perform trainings in the Rumanian language (3400 children are enrolled in these schools) and by such they are breaking the PMR law on education. The violations are:

a) as legal institutions, they haven't got state registration in any Justice bodies (which is a violation of Article 52 in the Civil Code of the PMR);

b) as institutions performing financial operations, they haven't got registration as tax-payers in.any tax bodies, and they haven't been coded (which is a violation of the "Tax System bases" law);

c) these schools have been working without licenses (which a violation of Article 18 of the law "On Licensing Particular Activities");

d) the school training performed by these institutions disagrees with the national standards in education in the PMR (violations of Articles 1,6,8,13, and 35 of the law "On Education");

e)municipal bodies of the educational management are not allowed to control the quality of teaching (violation of the law "On the bodies of local administration, local self-management, and state administration")

f) the teachers and parents make the children get the wrong attitudes to the state where they reside, they foster disrespect to other ethnic people and encourage law negligence, they teach them to be hypocritical (violations of the "Marriage and

Family" Code and "Children's Rights" Law.)

The-governing-structures in Moldova Republic have been blocking the efforts by the Ministry of Education, Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, to make education in the six non-governmental Rumanian secondary schools go through legal procedures in accord with the common world practice by barring these schools' administrations from carrying out their duties. Moldova has intentionally been creating the atmosphere of discord, restricting the questions of law, education, and bringing-up down to the question of the choice of language that the parents make for their children's education. It should be noted that there is no such problem in Pridnestrovie.

The Ministry of Education of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic points out that by encouraging the illegal activities at the six Rumanian secondary schools in the territory of Pridnesrovle anyone who does so contradicts the international law standards and also the common norms of tolerance and humanism. Showing all respect to the international organizations in their position on the Rumanian schools in Pridnestrovie, the Ministry of Education states that they will do all they can to integrate the above-mentioned educational institutions in the legal field of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.

Education Minister E.Bomeshko