Chinese language will be included in the Russian Unified State Exam by 2020 as a foreign language subject, said the director of the Federal Service for the Supervision of Education and Science (Rosobrnadzor), a federal executive body overseeing education and science of Russia, according to Sputnik Chinese’s report on January 31st, 2017.

As reported, it is planned to integrate Chinese in the final exam of the 9th grade in 2018, and to include it into the Unified State Exam for the 11th grade students to pass for entering university by 2020. The current plan for the integrating of Chinese language into state exams has been undergoing various tests in multiple regions and schools in Russia.

Unified State Exam of Russia is a series of exams high school graduates to take for higher education and foreign language is currently an elective subject, with an available choice of English, French, German, and Spanish.

The data from Federal Service for the Supervision of Education and Science (Rosobrnadzor) shows that as of now, Chinese language is being taught as a subject in 123 state primary and secondary schools in Russia, with a total of more than 17,000 students studying the language.