Yakutsk School Number 16

Yakutsk School Number 16 (Russian: Якутская городская школа №16) is a state-run school in Yakutsk, Sakha Republic. It was set up in the 1940s. As of 2005^[update], it had roughly 700 students.^[1] It is a UNESCO Associated School. The principal is Aleksandr Dubinin; his wife, Roza Hanbeevna Dubinina, is also a teacher there. The school attracted negative attention in 2008 due to a video which a student uploaded to a video-sharing site during the summer holiday, which insulted several teachers there.^[2]

School 16 is one of two schools in the city which teach Korean as a foreign language, the other being the Sakha-Korean School. They began teaching the language, along with taekwondo, in the 1990s. As of 2005^[update], they had 127 students studying the language. The program has expanded due to the enthusiasm of Dubinina, herself a descendant of Korean immigrants to Russia and a former teacher at the Sakha-Korean School. In 2005, a delegation from South Korea visited the school and gave them Korean clothing and school bags as a gift, and promised to provide further funding for textbooks and for study trips to Seoul for the best students.^[3] There are plans to employ a further teacher from South Korea to assist in the programme as well.^[1]