Ukraine and Poland will sign a declaration, which will outline the main directions for the implementation of the language article of the education law for Ukrainian schools where classes are taught in Polish, the Ukrainian Education and Science Ministry has reported.

According to the report, such agreement was reached at a meeting in Kyiv on Tuesday, October 17, between Ukrainian Education and Science Minister Lilia Hrynevych and Polish Minister of National Education Anna Zalewska. The parties are currently working on the text of the declaration, which is to be signed in the near future.

According to the report, Hrynevych noted that the Ukrainian Education and Science Ministry planned to gradually increase the number of subjects taught in the Ukrainian language. According to the preliminary proposal of the Ukrainian side, in senior school the percentage of such courses should be 60%.

The Polish side immediately adopted a general plan for the implementation of Article 7 (concerning the language of instruction), but the concern was caused by ambiguous formulations in the law.

"Clause 4 of Article 7 of the law says that some subjects can be taught in the languages of the European Union, but the word 'can' is not a guarantee. There must be a guarantee that a certain part of the subjects will be taught in Polish," Zalewska said.

Hrynevych said that the adopted law was basic and that more detailed formulations would be written in the law on general secondary education, as well as in the by-laws of the Cabinet of Ministers.

"From the very beginning we have declared our readiness to write out the way of implementation in bilateral documents between the countries. I want to note that five Ukrainian schools where the courses are taught in the Polish language already study in line with the model that we propose for implementation. That is, partly the subjects in the basic and senior school are studied in Ukrainian," she said.

The ministry noted that on October 26, Lviv would host a roundtable meeting involving representatives of the Polish minority in Ukraine, the Polish Embassy and the Ukrainian Education and Science Ministry on the implementation of Article 7 of the education law.

According to the ministry, about 400,000 children of national minorities study at 735 educational institutions in Ukraine. In particular, 1,785 pupils were taught in Polish in general education schools in the past academic year, Polish was learned as a subject by 45,964 pupils, including as a second language by 27,636. In total, there are five schools in Ukraine with education in Polish, one school with study in Polish and Ukrainian, and one more primary school with teaching in Polish and Russian. A total of 137 children were brought up in two kindergartens in Polish.