TY - JOUR AU - Chernychko Stepan PY - 2018/08/06 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - THE STATE LANGUAGE FOR THE HUNGARIANS OF TRANSCARPATHIA: THE FACTOR OF INTEGRATION, SEGREGATION OR ASSIMILATION? JF - Strategic Priorities JA - SPR VL - 46 IS - 1 SE - Policy DO - UR - https://niss-priority.com/index.php/journal/article/view/26 AB - The article deals with the problematic issues of teaching the Ukrainian language as state language in general educational institutions with the Hungarian language of instruction Transcarpathia from the point of view of integration, assimilation and segregation of the Hungarian national minority. Before the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence in the schools of Transcarpathia with Hungarian language of instruction obligatorily taught the Russian language, but did not teach Ukrainian at all. After 1991, the teaching of Ukrainian as a state language became compulsory in all general educational institutions. During the 25 years of Ukraine’s independence (since 1991), the state has not created the necessary conditions for studying the state language in schools of national minorities. Teachers, educational programs, textbooks, dictionaries, and teaching aids are not adequately prepared. Significant proportions of students who study in schools with minority languages of instruction do not properly master the state language at school. The right to study the state language is an important linguistic human right. Thousands of Hungarian children in the Transcarpathian region for eleven years, that is, from the 1st to the 11th grade, study the discipline «Ukrainian language», but do not demonstrate high results during external independent testing. This testifies to the fact that education is poorly functioning. It is necessary to decide what the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine expects from students of schools with Hungarian language of instruction: perfect knowledge of the grammar system of the Ukrainian language or the ability to successfully communicate in Ukrainian. Successful social integration of national minorities helps not knowing the rules of declension of verbs and nouns, but what they understand when they are treated or spoken in Ukrainian and if they are able to express their opinion verbally and in writing in the state language. They should be able to understand, speak, read and write in Ukrainian according to their daily needs; they need not abstract theoretical but useful functional knowledge. It is also important that they keep their language and culture, and, if possible, have learned at least one foreign language. To change this situation for the better, strategic reforms are needed. Improvements in the study of the Ukrainian language in general education institutions with instruction in the languages of national minorities should be addressed in the system of language education, where the language of instruction is the mother language of students, and the state language is taught at a high level by specialists specially trained for such work. ER -