Project Partner: Alytus Youth Centre
LITHUANIA State of the art Introduction Lithuanians are one of the ethnic groups in the Baltic region. While Lithuania has a population of about 2,9 million people, there are at least another million living in other countries, with Lithuanians generally located in the USA, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Russia, the United Kingdom and Ireland. The native language is Lithuanian, one of two living Baltic languages. An interesting fact about the language is that as far back as the beginning of the 19th century people noticed that Lithuanian was very similar to Sanskrit. Linguists around the world are still fascinated that the Lithuanian language has retained features of this ancient language and it hasn’t really simplified much. Many Lithuanians are multilingual; two-thirds of the population declare that they are able to speak at least two foreign languages. This exceeds the average of the European Union by several times. According to the data from Eurostat, 66.1 per cent of the
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population of Lithuania, aged 25 – 64, can speak two or more foreign languages, 31.5 per cent can speak one foreign language, and a mere 2.5 percent of the population cannot speak any foreign languages. The foreign languages people speak the most are English and Russian. Religion: Predominantly, Roman Catholic (approximately 80% of the total population). Others include Orthodox, Old Believers, Lutheran, Reformat, Jewish, Sunni, Karaite and other communities. Landscape: There are over 2,800 lakes larger than 0.5 hectares in size, and 18 rivers longer than 100 kilometres in Lithuania.
Education system in Lithuania Children in Lithuania can take part in pre-school education from birth until they start compulsory pre-primary education at the age of 6. According to the Law on Education, children who have reached seven years of age must attend the first form. If parents so wish and if a child is sufficiently mature to study under the primary education programme, they can start school earlier. The duration of the primary education programme is four years.
