Comment by Nina Shtanski concerning the Situation with “Lucian Blaga” Lyceum

12/06/13
Comment by Nina Shtanski concerning the Situation with “Lucian Blaga” Lyceum

Yesterday, on December 5, 2013, information resources of the Republic of Moldova widely replicated information about alleged “assault” of Tiraspol Moldovan lyceum “Lucian Blaga” by officials of the Ministry of Interior of Pridnestrovie. This lyceum is under Moldova's jurisdiction and provides training in Latin script.

In fact, according to the PMR's Prosecutor's Office, the office received a letter from one of lyceum's staff members which reported about violations of sanitary and epidemiological requirements to food organization for pupils, as well as about violations of labour rights of the employees. Inspection carried out by the State Agency “Republican Center of Hygiene and Epidemiology” revealed violations of hygienic requirements to training conditions and of sanitary-epidemiological requirements to food service for pupils in educational institutions. In particular, there is no hot water supply in the school, hot meals are not provided; other violations are on-hand. To eliminate these violations, controlling authority issued an Improvement Notice for the director of the lyceum. It was with the purpose of delivering this Improvement Notice that inspectors of the state supervision visited lyceum. Director of the lyceum refused to accept the notice. This was recorded by officers of the Interior Ministry of the PMR who were called in.

 Nina Shtanski, Deputy Chairperson of the PMR's Government for International Cooperation, Foreign Minister commented on this situation to the First Pridnestrovian TV Channel.

“Accusatory rhetoric of Kishinev which is once again pouring onto Pridnestrovie from all possible Moldovan media channels is puzzling. It is difficult to imagine the situation when, for example, a school governed by the law of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic would be located in the center of Kishinev and at the same time would refuse to exercise on its territory any control measures, planned checks, approval of educational standards and so forth,” the head of PMR's MFA said. “Yesterday's situation has shown that heating up situation around Moldovan Romanian-language schools is part of a carefully thought-up plan. Pridnestrovie has repeatedly addressed the Moldovan side in order to accommodate a clear, understandable and mutually acceptable mechanism of carrying out checks in such schools, because this concerns fire, sanitary and epidemiological safety and so on. Being located on the territory of Pridnestrovie, the school is formally subordinated to Moldovan authorities and is actually in the situation when it is not checked by any institution. However, our children study there, and we are liable for their safety. By the way, such planned checks by relevant institutions are carried out in all schools and in no way affect educational process. The fact that Moldovan authorities do not actually allow the management of these schools to build constructive dialogue with relevant authorities of Pridnestrovie also arouses astonishment. Yesterday we saw another confirmation of this; as a result, Pridnestrovian inspectors had to call the police,” the diplomat stressed. Nina Shtanski also paid attention to the fact that international partners “more than once confirmed the need to carry out all control activities in these schools”, since this directly affects the life and safety of people.