Education at Risk in the Northern Caucasus

In April 2008, the Education Support Program published the study Education at Risk in the Northern Caucasus: Adygheya, Dagestan, Ingushetiya, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachai-Cherkessia, North Ossetia-Alania and Chechnya as part of the Caucasus Education Initiative.

Northern Caucasus republics face not only the general problems of education development related to the post-Soviet transition processes, but also region-specific education problems such as post-conflict trauma and the deteriorating quality of Russian-language instruction. These problems put children and youth in the Northern Caucasus republics at risk, further hindering socioeconomic development, political stability, and social cohesion of the Northern Caucasus republics.

This study aims to identify specific groups of at-risk children and examine factors hindering their full participation in education in the Northern Caucasus republics. The study draws on the quantitative and qualitative data from a variety of information sources, including existing statistical data, document analysis, and interviews with education experts (principals of schools, local authorities, officials, and NGO activists), and focus groups of teachers both in rural and urban areas.

The study was funded by the Education Support Program and written by Dr. Irina Molodikova, a research fellow at Central European University (Budapest) and Director of the Social Inequality and Exclusion seminar program for OSI's RESeT program.