Occupants no longer teach Ukrainian in Sevastopol

Ukrainian is no longer taught as a subject in all secondary schools in occupied Sevastopol.

According to the Holos Kryma, on November 20, 2024, the occupying Russian Department of Education and Science of the occupied city of Sevastopol provided such a response to an information request from the head of the Ukrainian National Cultural Society of Sevastopol (UNCSS), Oleg Leus.

In the letter, Deputy Director of the occupation department Olena Andrus writes that within the subject areas "Native language", "Literary reading in the native language" and "Native literature" of the compulsory part of the curriculum in general education organizations of Sevastopol, Russian and Crimean Tatar languages are taught, Ukrainian is not taught.

"In Sevastopol, there are no institutions of preschool education, secondary vocational education and additional education for children where the Ukrainian language is taught," Andrus said.

According to Holos Kryma, back in February 2019, Russia's policy on the Ukrainian language as an educational subject changed.

"The then director of the Russian Department of Education and Science of Sevastopol, Igor Beloziorov , at a meeting with UNKTS activists, said that Ukrainian language and literature would be taught as subjects in Sevastopol secondary schools in the first grades if the parents of students wrote applications to schools asking that their children study their native language. It was about studying the Ukrainian language and literature using Russian textbooks ," the media reported.

According to unofficial data, in the early summer of 2019, parents of more than 100 Sevastopol students wrote such applications. In the 2019-2020 school year, 56 students in eight secondary schools studied Ukrainian as part of the subjects "Native Language" and "Native Literature". And in the 2021-2022 school year, 56 students in grades 2-5 and 8 in two schools.

Therefore, it is not yet clear when and on what grounds the study of Ukrainian language and literature in secondary schools in Sevastopol was discontinued.

In total, 249 children study in Ukrainian in Crimean schools, which is 0.2% of all students on the Crimean peninsula. Before the annexation of Crimea, 13,589 children were studying in Ukrainian on the peninsula.

Earlier, Amnesty International reported that Ukrainian teachers in the Russian-occupied territories faced a choice - to flee their homes or to teach a curriculum based on Russian state propaganda.

In June, human rights activists from Human Rights Watch stated that the Russian occupation authorities were banning the Ukrainian language and curriculum, imposing the Russian education system, spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda, and introducing the Russian language of instruction in educational institutions in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.

The organization's report "Education in Occupation: Forced Russification of the Education System in the Occupied Territories of Ukraine" documents the violation by the Russian Federation of international law regarding the right to education in the previously occupied territories of Kharkiv region and other regions of Ukraine that remain under Russian occupation.

According to Ukrainian experts, there are still about a million Ukrainian children of school age in the territories occupied by Russia. According to data obtained by Human Rights Watch from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, more than 62,400 children in the occupied territories continue to receive education in Ukrainian secondary schools remotely.

Олеся Ланцман