In the closed school at the monastery of the UOC no facts of violation of the law were discovered

Ukraine continues to investigate the activities of the educational institution at the Holy Protection Goloseevskyy Monastery of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which the state suspects of violating the language law and using non-standard curricula. However, according to the Secretariat of the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language, it has so far proved impossible to establish direct violations of the language law due to the lack of official confirmation and complaints, despite the identification of potentially problematic points in the educational program. The Security Service of Ukraine, in its turn, launched a pre-trial investigation into the facts publicized by journalists.

A representative of the commissioner for the protection of the state language, Yelizaveta Sachura, said in a commentary to Ukrinform that the heads of this educational institution have state certificates of proficiency in the state language. The main «clue» was in a «strange paragraph» of the educational program, which provided for the development of communication competences of junior schoolchildren, in addition to the state and foreign languages, also in their «native language». It gave the impression that this was the language used in the story by unspecified parents of the pupils, which may indicate Russian. Nevertheless, as Sachura stressed, the presence of such paragraphs in educational programs does not fall within the competence of the Commissioner for Protection of the State Language.

According to Sachura, other state bodies have indeed recorded violations concerning educational programs, enrollment regulations, evaluation, as well as distance or family forms of education. However, these violations are exclusively within their area of competence. Critical to establishing language violations is the lack of official confirmation: «None of the parents provided any official confirmation, video or complaint regarding the violation of the right to conduct the educational process in a non-state language in relation to their child. That is, no evidence or grounds that would allow to establish violations and bring potential violators to justice were found».

Recall that journalists of «Slidstvo.info» earlier published a material about the «illegal» school at the monastery of the UOC «Goloseevskaya desert» in Kiev. The investigation reported that in this institution children «are taught using Soviet textbooks, shown Russian movies and taught Russian songs», which caused a wide public outcry and questions about compliance with Ukrainian legislation. After these facts were made public, the Main Department of the Security Service of Ukraine in Kyiv city and Kyiv region launched a pre-trial investigation, and the school closed and stopped its work.