Russian-Language Schools Liquidated in Ukraine

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the bill "On full secondary education", which will eliminate Russian-language schools in the country. The parliament website published the information. Children of Russian-speaking citizens will learn their native language together with Ukrainian in primary school. From the fifth grade, at least 80 percent of the subjects must be studied in Ukrainian. Certain Russian-language training programs are being eliminated; children will be able to study only certain subjects in their native language. Ukrainization of schools for representatives of  the European Union and according language minorities will be milder. Thus, representatives of the Hungarian minority will also have education in their native language in parallel with education in Ukrainian in primary school. From the fifth grade, 20 percent of the subjects should be studied in Ukrainian, this proportion will reach 40 percent in the ninth grade. In 10th and 11th grades will be 60 percent of subjects studied in Ukrainian. Crimean Tatars will receive education in their native language in parallel with the study of Ukrainian. The document reserves the right to choose an individual curriculum for the student. However, the system of state final certification remains common for all students in the country. In September 2017, the then President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed the education law, according to which, from 2020, the entire process of education in the country should switch to Ukrainian. Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria and Russia voted against the adoption of the law. In October 2019, Minister of Education Anna Novosad sated the plans to transfer all Russian-language schools to Ukrainian-language education by September 2020. In addition, from the fall of 2023, it was planned to translate into Ukrainian those educational institutions in which training takes place in the languages of the European Union. In turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the Ukrainian authorities are continuing the previously taken course towards the total and forced Ukrainization of the country.