New Ukraine’s law: secondary school and higher education courses will only be available in Ukrainian

The Hungarian government has strenuously protested a recent education law passed by Ukraine’s parliament, János Árpád Potápi, the state secretary in charge of policy for Hungarian communities abroad.

According to Potápi’s statement, the new law strips Ukraine‘s ethnic minorities of access to schooling in their mother tongue, restricting their opportunities to prosper in their homeland.

Under the Ukrainian law, secondary school and higher education courses will only be available in Ukrainian, while education in minority languages is restricted to kindergartens and primary schools. It is an “unprecedented curbing” of the rights of 150,000 ethnic Hungarians and “totally unconstitutional”, Potápi said.

The new legislation contradicts Ukraine’s earlier pledges not to curb the rights of its Hungarian minority, Potápi said. The Hungarian government expects Ukraine to re-consider enforcing the law and to change it so the rights of ethnic minorities are not harmed, the statement added.

Source: MTI