Speech reforms: a new Russian course will be introduced in universities in the 2027/2028 academic year

A new compulsory course "Russian as the state language" will appear on the schedule of Russian students in the 2027/2028 academic year, Izvestia found out. The discipline will be introduced for all areas without exception. Students will be introduced to the regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation that regulate the use of language in various professional fields. Experts believe that the course will benefit future lawyers, civil servants and even businessmen. But experts warn that if universities use a formal approach to teaching, the discipline will lose its practical value and students will not be interested.

What students will learn about in the new course

A new compulsory course will be introduced at universities — "Russian as the state language". The Ministry of Education and Science is currently engaged in it. The draft concept is being finalized taking into account the opinion of the expert community. The agency plans to send the educational and methodological complex to universities in 2027. This will allow the discipline to be included in the schedule from the beginning of the 2027/2028 academic year, the Ministry of Education and Science told Izvestia.

At the same time, universities will be able to launch the course at any time during the year, since the law on education guarantees them autonomy in organizing the educational process.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Eduard Kornienko

On behalf of the Russian president, the subject will be included in the "unified core of higher education." This will make it strictly mandatory for all students, regardless of faculty, form, or level of study. Now, in addition to the Russian language, this list includes history, the foundations of Russian statehood and philosophy, Valery Falkov, head of the Ministry of Education and Science, recalled earlier.

According to him, absolutely all students, without exception, will study the new discipline. Saint Petersburg State University, together with other universities, is developing a new educational module, Sergei Belov, head of the working group, Dean of the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg State University, Director of the St. Petersburg State University Research Institute for Problems of the State Language, told Izvestia. He recalled that the discipline "Russian language and speech culture" is now taught in universities. It largely duplicates the school curriculum and explains the basic rules of speech.

Freedom of speech: Putin was informed about the creation of unified textbooks on the Russian language and literature

On the eve of Pushkin's birthday, the president gave instructions on popularizing Russian books and dividing the faculties of philology.

The new Deal pursues other goals. Students will study Russian legislation governing the use of the state language and analyze the practice of its application. The main document on the course will be the law "On the State Language of the Russian Federation". According to him, the Russian language is mandatory in the work of government agencies, courts, mass media, advertising and in the field of consumer protection. The lectures will explain to students the legal nuances of working in these areas.

The law on consumer protection will also be discussed in detail during the course. The high-profile amendments to it came into force on March 1 of this year. The new regulations have obliged businesses to fully translate all information for customers into Russian: from street signs and menus to mobile application interfaces. An exception is provided only for registered trademarks. Other entrepreneurs faced heavy costs for replacing signage and redesigning websites.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Pavel Volkov

In addition, students will study the law on advertising, the law on the languages of the peoples of Russia and about 15 other regulations, including the Code of Administrative Offenses (Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation), which provides for heavy fines for violations of language norms in the same advertising and trade. The Labor Code also requires that all personnel records be conducted exclusively in Russian.

The course is not aimed at memorizing spelling rules, Sergey Belov explained. Its purpose is to teach students how to read laws correctly, understand the boundaries of mandatory application of norms, and see areas where variability is allowed. The program will be useful for future officials, judges, teachers, journalists, marketers and business representatives, as they are all required to use Russian as the official language in their professional activities.

However, it remains unclear how relevant the course will be for other specialties, for example, for chemists or physicists, whose work is mostly not related to the public use of the Russian language. There are also risks that universities will approach the teaching of this subject formally, Alexey Shmelev, chief researcher at the Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Izvestia. For example, there are a lot of vague formulations in the laws, so the expert doubts that they will be successfully explained to students in practice.

Word by word: what awaits the Russian language in a century

Scientists claim that they have learned to predict changes in speech.

Language protection strategy

The introduction of the new course reflects the overall state strategy for protecting the Russian language and strengthening its position as the foundation of national identity. In particular, the authorities also plan to separate the study of Russian literature and foreign languages. Now, in many universities, these areas are combined in common philological faculties and departments on the same terms.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Zurab Javakhadze

The Ministry of Education and Science supports strengthening the status of the Russian language and literature in higher education. The ministry clarified that the changes do not imply a simple mechanical division of the philological faculties into "Russian" and "foreign" ones. Universities will create or allocate separate structures, taking into account their specifics. This may be a specialized department, a center, or an entire institute of Russian literature.

The Ministry has already identified universities where there are currently no independent departments or faculties of the Russian language, and has studied the reasons for their absence. After that, the Ministry of Education and Science will send methodological recommendations to universities on the creation of such units. Maxim Krongauz, a professor at the Higher School of Economics and the Russian State University of Economics, assessed this initiative as useful in a conversation with Izvestia, but believes that the new specialty of "Russian studies" will not necessarily be in demand.

Increased control over the state language is causing discussions in the expert and business community. Some entrepreneurs criticize the strict requirements for signage and advertising due to the high costs of forced rebranding in difficult economic conditions. In turn, there is an opinion that a living language is a self—regulating system. In such a situation, administrative prohibitions on the same borrowings are ineffective, since speech itself eventually filters out unnecessary words.