Russian language in Ukrainian schools. Is there problem or is not?
Next year my daughter is likely to go to the first class at school. Now we live in Kiev. It is probably the best place in Ukraine with the benefits of civilization and ways to ensure the availability of these benefits. At home we communicate on Russian. Although the wife's family use "Surjik" (mix of Ukrainian, Russian and slang). And I would like to see my daughter studied on Russian language. Considerations simple - there are a lot of scientific and art stuff available including Internet (books, video, audio). My grandparents used Russian language, my parents and I speak Russian. And as a participant of the process of learning my daughter I would be more comfortable if I had not to mentally translate her words. In my team at work almost all speak Russian, almost all my friends - Russian-speaking.
So, I made an official request to the Ministry of Education, Kyiv branch, asking how many schools organized classes with Russian language as primary language for educational process in the 2016-2017 school year. The official answer is "14" schools from more than 400 Kiev schools. Fourteen!!
What is it?
Considering the most pessimistic estimates, 40% people living in Kiev use Russian on daily communication.
The State guarantees free education on the language of national minorities. In this case the minority has so many people that almost exceed the "national majority". Adequate independent evaluation can not be found. That interests me as well, if the minority is 40%, why the number of "guaranteed" capacity is 4%?
Why Belarus, Canada and a lot of countries around the world have two official state languages and Ukraine not?
The Russian language problem is the most hot and important culture problem, that is diligently hidden by officials.
Img. Credit