People’s Deputy, Party of Regions parliamentary faction member Ivan Popesku in a comment to the PoR Press Service stated that a decree of the present minister of education about ukrainization of national schools within a three-year period (in particular, the matter concerns translation of the basic school subjects into Ukrainian) is perceived both by public at large and the Party of Regions member, consistently defending citizens’ language rights, as the most unreasonable and provocative decree throughout the whole history of independent Ukraine.

“While working in the regions I met a lot with the directors of national comprehensive schools. It is notable that even the deputies representing “orange” factions at local level are indignant to the innermost of their hearts not only over the content of Minister Vakarchuk’s decree but also with the method of its implementation in the national system of education”, Ivan Popesku underlined.

The Party of Regions Deputy also mentioned that everything occurring in Ukraine with a language issue does not have analogues anywhere, in any democratic country. “A question arises: people pay taxes to the state but speak the other language. So why do they have no right to teach their children in this language, teach, I will repeat, in the native language?!”, the Member of Parliament stated.

In his opinion, the current authorities by means of this decree, in fact, deprive the national minorities of Ukraine of a right to be taught in native language. “Actually, rights and freedoms set down by the Constitution are suffering a reverse. We consider the action performed by the Minister of Education and Science as a violation of the Constitution. 53 Party of Regions People’s Deputies have already written an appropriate appeal to him and warned unless the Ministry of Education cancels this decree, the Party of Regions faction in parliament will initiate resignation of the Minister. And at local level we will initiate signatures of parents and teachers, school directors regardless of their nationality in order to show who really supports European values and who favors cave nationalism”, Ivan Popesku marked.

The Party of Regions Press Service