Ukrainian schools check the language used by teachers and students

Ukrainian schools have begun to check the extent to which communication in the Ukrainian language is observed. Teachers, lecturers and educators who violate the language law may be fined.

This was announced by the representative of the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language, Ihor Spiridonov, on the air of the telethon «Yedyni Novyny».

On 28 April, inspections of Ukrainian language communication began in Ukrainian schools.

«This is not the first monitoring carried out jointly by the State Language Commissioner and the State Education Quality Service - it has been conducted for four years in a row. As for the methodology, questionnaires are sent to all participants in the educational process - parents, teachers, and students. The aim is to find out the real state of use of the state language in the educational process. That is, what language is used in the classroom. What language is used by participants in the educational process during breaks and other events that take place during the school day», said Ihor Spiridonov.

According to him, the inspection is carried out to find out how well the legislation on the state language is observed in educational institutions, what shortcomings and violations need to be eliminated.

If violations are detected, the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language will start an inspection of a particular institution, find out all the facts that led to the offence, and draw up a relevant report. And if the direct offender is identified, a report on an administrative offence is drawn up. The perpetrators face a fine of 3,400 hryvnias for the first offence and up to 8,500 hryvnias for the repeated offence within a year.

According to official information, only 345 schoolchildren study Russian in Ukraine today, although before the full-scale invasion there were about 100,000.

Since the beginning of 2025 and until April, the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language has received 646 complaints about violations of language legislation, most of which came from Kyiv, Odesa and Kharkiv regions.