47th session of the Human Rights Council
Item 3
Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the right to education
Intervention by Ukraine
(Geneva, June 25, 2021)
Madam President,
We welcome the Special Rapporteur and fully support her view that education should enable all persons to promote understanding and tolerance. Being home to over 130 nationalities, Ukraine attaches special attention to the promotion of intercultural dialogue in a diverse, multiethnic society.
As the SR noted in her report, it is unacceptable when education systems are used for discrimination and exclusion. Ukraine's national legislation in the sphere of education aims at avoiding segregation in education while fully respecting the educational rights of persons belonging to minorities. Its objective is to improve the quality of education, ensure equal opportunities for everyone and foster competitiveness of young people in the labour market and employment, including in the public sector. Teaching in minority languages is pursued in more than 900 educational institutions across Ukraine.
The recent steps to promote multilingual education as a means to balance the preservation of minority languages and ensure integration into the society include implementation of the Ukrainian-Romanian educational project "Intercultural education - respect for ethnic and cultural traditions“ and the pilot programme supported by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities.
An important aspect of the right to education is the right to freely chose an educational institution. The Russian occupation administration in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine prohibits crossing the checkpoints to those who wish to enter educational institutions in the Government controlled territories of Ukraine. Furthermore, the Russian occupation authorities have recently closed several primary and vocational schools in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, thus forcing the students to opt for other institutions, which often are very distant. These are concrete examples of the violation of the right to education in my country.
To top it all, the Russian Federation continues to ignore the ICJ Order demanding Russia as an occupying power to ensure availability of education in the Ukrainian language in the occupied Crimea.
We hope that these denied rights to education will be properly addressed by the Special Rapporteur.
I thank you.