Starting September 1, 2025, Russian schools will admit children of foreign citizens only if they pass a Russian-language test and submit a full set of documents. Human rights advocates say access to education for these children was already difficult, and the new rules may reduce enrollment even further.
According to Interior Ministry data cited by the authors of a new cross-party bill, more than 638,000 migrant minors are currently in Russia, but only 181,500 attend school. At the same time, lawmakers have proposed making schooling for migrant children fee-based, while the New People party suggested allowing no more than one such child per class.
Mandatory language tests were introduced in spring 2025. First-grade applicants take only an oral task, while older students must complete oral and written sections. Olga Abramenko, an expert with the Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial, said that refusals had happened before as well, but they could previously be challenged as unlawful.
“Testing practices do exist around the world, but they are used not to filter children out, rather to define their educational path. A system like the one now operating in Russia does not exist anywhere,” Abramenko said.
State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the tests had been designed around a 30% threshold of correct answers, yet schools in practice require 90% for admission. He also said that in the first month only 27 children were admitted out of 1,762 applications, while 81% were screened out at the document-submission stage.
Rights advocates say applications must now be filed through Mos.ru and Gosuslugi, and the system rejects any incomplete document package. If a child fails the test, they are told to study Russian for three months and apply again, even though, according to the paper’s sources, Moscow has only a handful of official paid courses.
Sources interviewed by Novaya Gazeta Europe warn that the stricter rules are leaving some teenagers out of school for months or even years. They say this affects not only migrant families, but also families that have already obtained Russian citizenship and women who came to Russia fleeing domestic violence.