The language (languages) of training and teaching in general education institutions is/are defined in accordance with the Ukrainian Constitution and Ukrainian Law "On languages". The State takes into consideration the fact that certain part of population includes persons relating to national minorities and possessing their own language, culture, traditions and other ethnic diversities. In order to ensure the satisfaction of educational necessities of different nationalities living in Ukraine, 2,215 institutions with the Russian language as the language of training and teaching, 68 with Hungarian, 97 with Rumanian, 10 with Crimean, Tartar and Polish languages, are functioning in places of compact residence of such minorities.
The last years have seen basic changes in terms of training of school students in Ukrainian language. Particularly, their number had grown from 50 up to 70 percent for the last 10 years.
More than 500 titles of new and improved school textbooks and manuals for heterogeneous types of education institutions have been developed and published during the years of independence of our State. This is a big achievement of ours. Still, such issues as the quantity of school-books, their quality, margin of their variability, their price, remain to be actual problems.[1]
The constitution provides for the "free development, use, and protection of the Russian language and other minority languages," but some pro‑Russian organizations in the eastern part of the country and in Crimea complained about the increased use of Ukrainian in schools, the media, and the courts. These groups claimed, for example, that their children were disadvantaged when taking academic entrance examinations, since all applicants were required to take a Ukrainian language test. Government representatives disagreed. Deputy Minister of Education and Science Viktor Ohnevyuk noted in an August 31 interview with Interfax that "every fifth student in Ukraine is taught in Russian." According to Ohnevyuk, 1,500 schools teach students in the Russian language. In addition, he said that 550 schools teach students in two languages, either Russian and Ukrainian or Russian and Crimean‑Tatar. Ohnevyuk also related that over 27 thousand schoolchildren studied in Romanian, around 20 thousand were taught in Hungarian (primarily in Zakarpattya Region), 6,500 in Moldovan (primarily in Odesa Region), 6 thousand in Crimean‑Tatar, and 1,400 in Polish. [2]
4.5 and 2.1 numbers are from Ukrainization article source
Ukrainian 4,500,000 Ukrainian 67.55% Russian 2,100,000 Russian 31.52% Others 61,450 Others 0.93%
Romanian 27,000 Hungarian 20,000 Moldovan 6,500 Crimean-Tatar 6,000 Polish 1,400 Other (Ru/Ua or Ru/Crimean Tatar) 550
TOTAL #: 6,661,450
Note: statistical data from a period between 1999 to 2004 was used