Speaker of Ukrainian Parliament: there will be no changes to Ukrainian education law
Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubiy stated that no amendments would be added to “The Language of Education,” which is Section 7 of the law on education.
Speaking at a conference on the Day of Local Self-Government in the Lviv region, Parubiy said that he had a conversation with representatives of the Venice Commission. On the parliament’s website, the Chairman was quoted as saying that “it was agreed that the seventh article of the law ‘On Education’ would not be changed.”
On September 5, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law "On Education" with 255 votes. The law regulates the use of the Ukrainian language in the field of education. On September 28, the law came into effect.
The law assumes that children who go to schools from September 1, 2018 will have the opportunity to study in their native language only in primary school, the first four years. From the fifth grade, subjects should be taught in Ukrainian.
Official bodies of a number of countries that have a large diaspora in Ukraine have protested because of this rule.
In order to remove dubious claims, Ukraine asked for the law "On Education" to be analyzed by the Venice Commission, a Council of Europe body. On Friday, December 8, the commission announced its findings regarding the document. It noted that the law does not provide for the possibility of studying in languages that are not official languages of the EU, especially Russian.
The Venice Commission experts recommended making amendments to section 7 and replacing the corresponding regulation with a more balanced one.