Other minority groups reflect the movements during the Soviet period and include: Uighurs (1.5%), Ukrainians (1.3%) and Germans (1.0%) (IAC, 2014). Kazakh is considered the language of the Republic and, according to the 2009 census, is understood by two thirds of the population. Russian is considered the language of inter-ethnic communication as it is understood by virtually everyone (94% of the population). English is understood by 15.4% of the population. The positive discrimination of the Kazakh language to strengthen national identity and to affirm it as the primary language of communication has translated into a growing number of schools using Kazakh as the language of instruction. In 2012, the language of instruction in most of the schools was Kazakh (3 819 schools), followed by Russian (1 394), Uzbek (60), Uighur (14), and Tajik (2) (IAC, 2014).