“The Right Balance” – Ruling of The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania and the Dilemma of National Minority Education

The beginning of the year brought a landmark decision in the years-long debate over the form of national minority education in Lithuania. The ruling of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania on January 7, 2026, finding the curriculum plans to be incompatible with the Law on Education, emphasizes the importance of teaching national minority languages. The ruling opens a broad space for discussion not only about the number of instructional hours, but above all about the quality of education, students’ psychophysical well-being, and the delicate balance between promoting the state language and protecting minority identity.

The essence of the Supreme Administrative Court’s ruling was the determination that educational plans were incompatible with the requirement to allocate no less time to teaching Lithuanian than to teaching the native language. According to the Supreme Administrative Court, this provision must be interpreted literally – as referring to a measurable number of clock hours. The Ministry’s argument pointing to the integration of language with other subjects or school autonomy was rejected as insufficient. The Court emphasized that organizational difficulties cannot justify violating statutory law. The ruling requires the state administration to take immediate corrective measures. An amendment to the curriculum plans has been announced for the current school year to increase the number of hours allocated to the native language. However, this situation highlights a systemic gap that has existed since 2011 – for 15 years educational law remained disconnected from the realities of school life.

The European Foundation of Human Rights points to the need to interpret the Court’s ruling within the broader context of Lithuania’s international obligations. The principle of balance invoked by the Court aligns with UNESCO standards regarding multilingual education. According to an established stance, native language education constitutes the foundation of a child’s cognitive development and is an essential requisite for the effective acquisition of additional languages, including the state language.

The court ruling brings to an end a years-long period during which the provisions of the 2011 Law on Education concerning the proportion of instructional hours remained a dead letter (the law requires that the time allocated to the native language be no less than that allocated to the state language). The Court has definitively ruled that maintaining fewer instructional hours for the native language is unacceptable and cannot be justified on any grounds, thereby requiring the curriculum plans to be revised. The ruling will also affect government policy, as at the end of last year the government proposed further increasing this disparity.

A key systemic problem that cannot be solved by simply adjusting the number of instructional hours is the lack of an adequate methodology. Educational experts warn that since 2011, students in minority schools have been following a standardized curriculum, meaning that they are subject to the same requirements as native Lithuanian speakers, while lacking appropriate teaching tools.

In its reasoning, the Court rightly pointed to the executive branch’s obligation to ensure “the right balance.” This balance, however, cannot consist solely of symmetry in the timetable; it must guarantee equal educational opportunities.

Translated by Małgorzata Wojnakowska within the framework of a traineeship programme of the EFHR