Recent studies by the State Service for the Quality of Education of Ukraine have revealed alarming trends in the use of the Ukrainian language among schoolchildren in the country. According to the results of a study conducted during the 2023/24 academic year, it was found that only 74% of Ukrainian schoolchildren use the Ukrainian language in everyday life, which indicates a significant decline compared to the previous period, when this figure was 91%.
Similarly, this indicator decreased among teachers (from 93 to 82%) and parents (from 94 to 86%).
The number of students who use only the state language during lessons and breaks fell by 8%. Less than 40% of schoolchildren communicate exclusively in Ukrainian outside of school. Only 17% of them are in the east of the country, 74% in the west.
"In the eastern and southern macro-regions, the Russian language prevails in the everyday communication of the participants of the educational process," - say the authors of the study.
The number of high school students who use Ukrainian-language content on the Internet also fell by 11%. The number of those who consider the language of the content to be important fell by 12%.
The reasons for the decline in the popularity of the Ukrainian language in the study are explained by the fact that "this year, the study covered a larger number of respondents with an emphasis on urban areas. It is known that the urban agglomeration is traditionally the epicenter of the increase of the Russian-speaking component."
