The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine has offered three options for the implementation of Article 7 of Law "On Education" regarding the language of instruction in Ukrainian educational facilities, which will be spelled out in law "On General Secondary Education."
According to the ministry, the first model provides for the possibility to have a minority language of instruction for all subjects from 1 to 11 (12) grades, along with the Ukrainian language of instruction.
"This model will be applied to vulnerable languages, that is, those without their own state to develop linguistic terminology, as well as for people living beyond the environment of their native language. For example, Crimean Tatars have no other state that would develop the terminology of their language while the community lives exclusively in the Ukrainian-speaking or Russian-speaking environment, which also does not contribute to the development of the Crimean Tatar language," the ministry said.
The second model applies to national communities speaking one of EU languages. Its use can have two options.
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The second option will take into account the peculiarities of learning the Ukrainian language by representatives of other language groups, who mainly live in the environment of their native language (Romanian and Hungarian). "For schools with these languages of instruction, the transition to the Ukrainian language of instruction will take place even more gradually, while the share of subjects studied in the state language will be lower. This approach is due to the fact that it is much more difficult to learn the language of another language group, it takes more class hours to reach the language level sufficient for studying other subjects," the ministry notes.
The third model is envisaged for the national communities whose mother tongue belongs to the same language group as Ukrainian, as well as those living mainly within their native language environment (Russian speakers). Children who will study according to this model will switch to subjects in Ukrainian language of instruction immediately after the 5th grade. "Children whose mother tongue is Russian learn Ukrainian easily. At the same time, they mostly live in the speaking environment – they communicate in Russian with their families, in the street, also being able to watch movies and TV programs in Russian. So, the only place where children from this national community can freely apply the state language is their school. By studying subjects in Ukrainian, while continuing to learn Russian language (as a subject), children will be able to master both languages at a high level – both Ukrainian and Russian," the ministry said.
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