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- To take into account: schools will transfer all data on migrant children to the Ministry of Internal Affairs
To take into account: schools will transfer all data on migrant children to the Ministry of Internal Affairs
The police and regional departments and ministries of education will exchange information about migrant children. This bill was supported by the Cabinet of Ministers. Information about applying for admission to an educational institution, data on admission, expulsion, and testing for proficiency in the Russian language will be transmitted. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, in turn, will send information about the registration of children to educational organizations — this is necessary to identify those who are not studying. According to the authors, a special information system worth 125 million rubles will be needed for accounting, and they explain that this mechanism is aimed at helping children integrate and adapt to the country. Currently, the data is really scattered, which creates significant gaps in understanding the real number, educational status and location of minor foreigners, experts noted. How the mechanism will work is described in the Izvestia article.
Register it
Regional and municipal education authorities will be required to provide information about migrant children to the police. Such amendments, developed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, were approved on April 21 by the government commission on legislative activity (the document is available to Izvestia), sources told the editorial board in the Cabinet.
The bill provides for the introduction of a mechanism for interdepartmental interaction on the transfer of information about foreign minors, said Vladimir Gruzdev, Chairman of the Board of the Russian Bar Association.
"It is proposed to establish the transfer of information between the divisions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the executive bodies of the regional and municipal levels that manage education," he said. — It is planned that the Ministry of Internal Affairs will transmit information about registration, registration and, accordingly, de-registration or registration of minor foreign citizens.
As stated in the explanatory note, such measures are necessary in order to identify children who have not been enrolled in educational institutions — "to realize their right to receive general education."
And the executive authorities will provide information about the admission or expulsion of minor foreign citizens, about the results of testing for knowledge of the Russian language, the expert added.
It is assumed that information will be transmitted through a single system of interdepartmental electronic interaction and regional systems connected to it, the explanatory note to the bill says. According to the authors, 125 million rubles of additional funding from the federal budget will be required to finalize the program for the new functionality.
The order and composition of the information, as well as the timing of their transfer, have yet to be determined by the Government.
How to pass the Russian language exam
In December 2024, Deputy head of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting on improving migration legislation that 200,000 migrant children study in Russian schools, but more than 40% of them have insufficient Russian proficiency.
"The stay of migrant families in Russia is connected with the need to educate the children of foreign workers in a Russian school," he said. — There are many such children in educational institutions. The level of Russian language proficiency is insufficient for mastering educational programs, and for initial mastering.
In addition, on April 1, 2025, a law came into force prohibiting the enrollment of migrant children who do not speak Russian in schools. At the same time, foreigners will be accepted for training in basic general education programs, provided they present a document confirming the legality of their stay in the territory of the Russian Federation.
To be admitted to the school, you will need to successfully pass the Russian language proficiency test. On the website of the Federal Institute of Pedagogical Measurements (FIPI), in the section "For Foreign Citizens", specifications and demonstration versions of diagnostic materials for testing foreign citizens and stateless persons for knowledge of the Russian language are published.
As follows from the Rosobrnadzor order, the minimum number of points that foreign citizens and stateless persons must score during the Russian language proficiency test for admission to Russian schools is three, the agency noted. This confirms compliance with the requirements for the level of knowledge of the Russian language established by the Ministry of Education.
"This indicator can be compared with a confident top three on a five-point scale that everyone understands. Testing options are created for applicants to study in each grade of a secondary school, from the first to the 11th grade. For admission to the first grade, it is required to demonstrate speaking skills, listening and understanding oral speech, lexico-grammatical knowledge," explained Rosobrnadzor.
From the second grade, tasks to test reading and writing skills are added to the diagnostic work. All of them are aimed at requiring a foreign citizen to study in Russian according to Russian educational programs of the appropriate class.
What to do if they don't take you to school
The proposed bill is necessary primarily due to the lack of a unified centralized accounting system for minors who arrived in the country with migrant parents or were born in the territory of the Russian Federation, says Natalia Golosnova, CEO of the Ratsio consulting group.
— Now information about such children is scattered and is managed only by educational institutions, — she pointed out. — This creates significant gaps in understanding the real number of children, their educational status and location.
Vadim Kozhenov, an independent migration expert, agreed with her. According to him, foreigners' children are often not accepted into schools, and sometimes migrants forget to register their children.
— There is a problem that schools are not accepted, but if there are many options in Moscow, then it is more difficult in the regions, — he pointed out. — For example, there are two schools there and both were not accepted. It turns out that the child simply does not study, but skips time. That's why someone says, "They won't take you to school anyway," and they don't. There are also problems regarding the negative attitude towards such children in schools.
As a result, the lack of a complete picture makes it difficult to effectively identify children who, for whatever reason, do not attend educational institutions, Natalia Golosnova noted.
"This may be due to parents' failure to fulfill their responsibilities, or to more serious problems," the expert said. — Also planning social infrastructure, for example, the required number of places in schools, the development of special adaptation programs for the integration and support of migrant children.
The amendments will also help identify so-called "invisible" children: some minors should be in school by age, but in fact they do not attend and are not registered, which may become the basis for inspections and measures to ensure the right to education of such children and protection. In addition, another purpose of the amendments may be to monitor the legality of the stay of migrant families through their children, said Olivia Livingston, a lawyer at the Law and Sport Research Center.
"If a child is enrolled in school, this may indirectly confirm the family's legal presence in the country," she believes. — Now the data is most likely being collected in fragments. The success of the amendments depends on avoiding data abuse and providing real support to migrant families, not just administrative pressure.
Vadim Kozhenov noted that the best solution would be to create a digital profile of a migrant in Russia, where all the information would be recorded. And as they got older, additional data from various departments would be uploaded there. Perhaps the adoption of such amendments is a preparation for a full—fledged system, expert T. believes.
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