Romanian-language schools in Ukraine can no longer be abolished without the approval of the Ministry of Education in Kyiv, according to the new legislation, Oksana Sacriier, the vice-governor of the Chernivtsi Regional Military Administration, announced on Friday. She presented, in a press conference held at the Embassy of Ukraine, the main changes brought to the education system, including the reorganization of high schools and the transition to 12 classes. According to her, approximately a quarter of the 69 academic high schools planned in the Chernivtsi region will be taught in Romanian.
In order to liquidate an educational institution in the minority language, approval is needed from Kiev, according to the recent law promulgated in Ukraine, Oksana Sacriier, vice-governor of the Chernivtsi Regional Military Administration, said on Friday.
She held, at the Embassy of Ukraine, a press conference whose theme was the rights of national minorities, especially the Romanian minority in Ukraine, in the field of Education.
“In order to liquidate an educational institution with the language of instruction of national minorities, it is necessary to obtain an approval from the Ministry of Education in Kyiv. Until now, the decision was taken at the level of the territorial community,” she said, according to the translation.
The vice-governor said that in the Chernivtsi region there are 63 educational institutions, which deal with the primary and secondary education (up to the ninth grade) of children in the area and 11 branches “that will not be closed”. These branches have less than 60 students and are not legally registered as educational institutions, but are linked to the basic school.
The changes in the Education Law of the neighboring country are in line with the alignment with the legal framework of the European Union, Ukraine aspiring to European integration. Thus, in Ukraine one more year of studies is added – from 11th to 12th grade – and the notion of academic high school was introduced.
Oksana Sacriier claimed that the number of secondary education institutions does not change and at the moment there are 44 high schools operating in the Chernivtsi region, of which 15 academic high schools will remain, depending on how many teachers are trained.
According to her, since the beginning of the war, Ukraine is facing a demographic decline, both in terms of teachers and students, who leave with their families.
“At the moment we have a high school with professional studies in the Romanian language. Last year, for example, there was a subsidy from the state of 4.5 million hryvnias for this high school, to improve the situation, for physics and chemistry laboratories. Currently we have a new subsidy of 10 million hryvnias for the High School (‘Alexandru Ilschi’) in Crasna”, she mentioned.
The Ukrainian official declared that the authorities in his country are inspired, regarding the reform, including from the Romanian authorities, with whom they had almost 60 consultations.
Oksana Sacriier showed that the establishment of 69 academic high schools is planned in the Chernivtsi region, a quarter of which will be academic high schools with the Romanian language of instruction. In total, there are 96,000 students in the region, of which ethnic Romanians are less than 14,000, she estimated.
“Moving to a 12-class education system, we must also accumulate teaching staff and funding,” Sacriier argued. For countries with teaching in a language other than Ukrainian, in a school there must be more than 50% representatives of the respective nationality and the director must know both languages and the documentation must be bilingual”, she explained.
In this context, the equivalent of the Baccalaureate can be translated into the language of the minority, but the requests in this regard are not considerable, since the students know both languages.
“For us it is very important at the moment to adapt the legislation of Ukraine to all the requirements we have from the European Union, to adapt the legislative part including what is related to education and to be in the interest of the children”, the vice-governor emphasized.
Oksana Sacriier claimed that the Romanian language textbooks used in schools in Ukraine are in accordance with the school curriculum in this country: “That statement to send books to Romanians in Ukraine is more of a populist idea and statement, for the electorate, because the textbooks we use in Romanian schools are in accordance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Science and Education in Kyiv and are translated and printed from the funds of the state budget”.
