More than half of Ukrainian citizens believe that the Russian language should not be studied in junior and secondary educational institutions.
The dominant part of Ukrainians (52%) believes that in general it is not worth learning Russian in schools. At the same time, in 2019 there were only 8% of them. This is confirmed by the data of a public opinion poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in the period from 14 to 22 February.
“KIIS regularly asks about the study of the Russian language in schools, and we offer a look at what the opinions and views of Ukrainians were in 1998, 2019 and 2023. In 2019, only 8% of Ukrainians believe that it is not worth learning Russian at all in schools, while today there are 52% of such people,” said the institute.
According to sociologists, 25-30 years ago, studies on this issue did not even add the option “do not study at all”, which indicates the depth of changes in public perception that have gone through of Ukraine in the lifetime of a generation.
At the same time, today 42% support maintaining the study of the Russian language at a certain value. However, even in this regard there are significant internal changes in the direction of reducing the time that should be devoted to studying the Russian language. In particular, in 1998, 46% believed that the cost of education should be the same as for the Ukrainian language. In 2019, this number was 30%, and now it is only 3%.
The number of those who believe that the Russian language should be studied to a lesser extent than Ukrainian, but more than other foreign languages, also decreased – from 32% to 6%.
In fact, of this 42%, the majority – 33% (which is equal to 80% of this category of citizens) – would like to see the Russian language given the same or less time than other foreign languages.
Sociologists emphasize that “the large-scale invasion of Russia in 2022 really “killed” the prospects for the Russian language in Ukraine.” In their opinion, Ukrainian politicians “made the right conclusions and stopped thinking about the language issue.”
The survey was conducted through telephone interviews using a computer based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers.
The respondents were 1017, living in all regions of Ukraine (except the Autonomous Republic of Crimea) aged 18 years and older. The sample does not include residents of territories temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, as well as those who went abroad after February 24, 2022.
The statistical error of the sample is no more than 3.4%.
Recall that in August 2022 it became known that the Russian language will not be taught in schools in Kyiv, even if it is optional.
Kyiv university teacher fired over language incident
news Correspondent.net on Telegram. Subscribe to our channel Athletistic
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.