Lithuania is considering shutting down all of its Russian-language schools, a move that would mark a major shift in education policy in the European Union's smallest Baltic state.
The country's economy and innovation minister, Ausrine Armonaite, says it would be a "terrible mistake" to close the schools, which serve children from ethnic communities that make up less than 1% of the country's population, reports the BBC.
Armonaite says politicians are using the issue to increase their popularity.
"We should not do that as we are talking about children, these are their lives, they are growing in schools, and the personalities that will come out of there will have an impact on our country's life," she tells public radio.
"We have excellent schools in Lithuania with other languages of instruction, be it Polish or Russian, so we need to approach this issue very cautiously, not populistically, not drastically, not with Facebook posts, but with analysis," says the leader of Lithuania's Freedom Party.
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