Ukraine and Poland on Wednesday, 25 October, signed a declaration guaranteeing the rights of national minorities in Ukraine to study in their native language.
The press service of the Ministry of National Education of Poland quoted in a release the minister Hanna Zalewska as saying that "the declaration is the culmination of Polish-Ukrainian negotiations on the language norms of the law On Education of Ukraine.
Poland and Ukraine undertook to protect persons belonging to national minorities (Polish minority in Ukraine and the Ukrainian minority in the Republic of Poland) to study in the mother tongue in schools.
Under the new version of the law on education, preschool and primary education can be implemented in the language of national minorities with parallel studying of the state language. In secondary school, students will be taught in the state language, while the language of the national minority will be studied as a separate discipline.
The new version of the law On Education came into force on September 28. Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova have said that the language norms of the new version of the law violate the rights of national minorities in Ukraine.
On October 19, Ukraine and Hungary agreed on the implementation of language norms laid down in the education law.