The Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East wish to contribute to the work of the educational centres for staff training in the Russian part of the Arctic region. This comment is made by Grigory Ledkov, Member of the Federation Council Committee on Federal Structure, Regional Policy, Local Government and Northern Affairs, President of the RAIPON.

'We believe that only in tandem with scientific organisations and educational centres we can train new qualified employees to work in the Arctic region. In the nearest future, we will engage our indigenous peoples of the Arctic in these educational processes,' says Ledkov at the conference for recruiting human resources in the Arctic region held in Arkhangelsk (as reported by TASS).

Ledkov adds that they are implementing the Children of the Arctic programme that aims at developing various education formats for the Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East with consideration to their cultural aspects. One of such formats is nomadic schools. 'Assisted by our educational centres and federal agencies, we are working on this [Children of the Arctic] project. I am also certain that in the course of these two years [of Russia's chairmanship of the Arctic Council] we will be doing our best at demonstrating our experience in regard to educational centres for the Arctic nomads,' points out Ledkov.

The Children of the Arctic programme is based on the concept of supporting new educational formats with consideration to the climatic and cultural aspects of the life of the Indigenous Peoples of the North, the children's healthcare, and creating and printing textbooks.

Now, there are 47 indigenous peoples in Russia, accounting for over 300,000 people in total. They mainly live in the North, Siberia and the Far East, including the Arctic region. They benefit from a special status and a number of state-sponsored incentives.

The Arctic Council is an intergovernmental organisation of the Arctic States. Among its members, there are Denmark (together with Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Iceland, Canada, Norway, Russia, the USA, Finland, and Sweden. Moreover, the Arctic Council grants the observer status to non-Arctic States, intergovernmental and interparliamentary organisations, as well as non-governmental organisations. In 2021, the Association celebrated its 25th anniversary, and the two-year chairmanship passed from Iceland to Russia.