MOSCOW, July 25 (RAPSI) – The State Duma has passed in the third and final reading a bill on studying native languages of Russian Federation peoples.

According to the bill, federal standards of primary school education in Russia now provide an option to be educated in languages spoken by the peoples living in Russia and official state languages of Russia’s federal subjects, including Russian language. Russian language may be freely chosen as the native language by the family of a student.

The Chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on Education Vyacheslav Nikonov noted that there were no plans to make the study of minority languages in Russian regions optional instead of mandatory.

The controversial bill was previously criticized by the Presidential Council of Human Rights.

The chairman of the Council Mikhail Fedotov commented on the first version of the bill saying that most people strived to maintain their national and ethnic identity and valued their Constitutional right to speak, think and learn in native language.

The Council expressed a belief that making the study of native languages optional was harmful as concerned the maintaining of identity of ethnic groups speaking languages other than Russian. It was noted that the proposed change would have made such studies bothersome for schoolchildren and would have diminished their interest in native languages.

Later, the bill was revised to incorporate the feedback from representatives of Russian national Republics. In particular, the Committee on Education proposed to establish a foundation for support of minority languages in Russia.