On Friday 12 August, during a press briefing at the Media Centre Ukraine, Rostyslav Karandieiev, the country’s First Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Policy, reiterated Ukraine’s desire to join the EU. To this end, he announced the government’s plan to support a law to establish the special status of English as the language of international communication, acknowledging its place as the de facto lingua franca of Europe. Further, the draft law will expand the scope of English within Ukraine and it will be made mandatory to use English within certain areas of public life.
At present, Ukraine’s population is ranked 40th out of 112 countries in terms of English proficiency, so there is ample scope for teaching and learning English there. To this end, an interdepartmental working group is being put together to review proposals for implementing the law, with public discussion followed by its presentation to the government.
The minister stressed that at present the draft is both at a very early stage and is not intended to limit or restrict the use of Ukrainian in the future. However, if English is given special status, it will be included in the national curriculum and would be taught from Kindergarten on as a second foreign language.
