In Belarus, Schoolchildren Are “disappearing”
1- 1.09.2026, 9:35
A decrease of 65,000 over the past three years.
On September 1, the new school year began in Belarusian schools. In the 2026–2027 school year, there will be approximately 2,600 schools, gymnasiums, and lyceums operating in the country, with 1,025,000 children enrolled. A year earlier, approximately 1,050,000 students were enrolled in general secondary education institutions—the number of which remained unchanged—while in 2024 there were about 1,070,000, and in 2023, about 1,090,000. Thus, over the past three years, the number of schoolchildren has decreased by approximately 65,000. This is comparable to the population of the district center of Rechitsa in the Gomel Region, noted “Pozirk”.
The number of first-graders is also declining. In 2026, about 87,000 children entered first grade. In 2025, there were about 90,000; in 2024, 105,000; in 2023, 110,000; and in 2021, about 118,000. Thus, over three years, the number of children starting school for the first time decreased by 23,000, and over five years—by 31,000. That’s roughly the population of Osipovichi in the Mogilev Region.
One of the notable changes for the new school year is a revision of the rules for searches at schools. Starting September 1, police officers, Department of Security personnel, and security guards will be able to randomly inspect students’ personal belongings if there is suspicion that a child is attempting to bring prohibited items onto school grounds. The presence of parents or other legal guardians is no longer required.
A search of a minor may be conducted in the presence of a school staff member. The new rules are enshrined in Council of Ministers Resolution No. 307 of June 19, 2026.
Starting September 1, artificial intelligence will be introduced into the school curriculum and taught in grades 6–9 during computer science classes. Specifically, students will be taught to formulate queries for neural networks, verify the accuracy of the information received, work with text, audio, and video materials, and use AI in modeling.
The changes also affect pre-military training. The curriculum allocates 10 hours to the study of unmanned aerial vehicles, and field training exercises will also be conducted. The “Medical Training” course will now include the basics of tactical medicine.
For the new school year, certain curricula and textbooks have been updated. By September 1, nearly 1.5 million copies of textbooks had been prepared, including 428 copies in Braille for visually impaired children.
On September 1, all educational institutions will hold a ceremony dedicated to Knowledge Day and conduct a unified thematic lesson titled “Knowledge Today—Strength and Prosperity for Belarus Tomorrow.”
Belarusian schools will continue to operate within the framework of ideologization and militarization. As “Pozir” previously reported, approximately 2,000 “military-patriotic education supervisors” are involved in the secondary education system.
Students in grades 10 and 11 will continue to study “The History of Belarus in the Context of World History,” which, starting in 2024, replaced the subjects “History of Belarus” and “World History”.
A study published in the fall of 2025 by the international expert initiative iSANS states that the textbook for this subject “is the most ideologized and pro-Russian in the history of modern Belarus.”
For example, children are given virtually no information about the proclamation of the Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR) in 1918 or other facts regarding the national struggle, and the white-red-white flag is presented as a symbol of collaborationism during World War II. Parallels are drawn between the 2020 protesters and collaborators.
School instruction will continue to be conducted primarily in Russian, although 42% of schools offer some subjects in Belarusian. In 2025, approximately 10% of children (just over 100,000) were enrolled in Belarusian-language schools.
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