Hungary’s first ever Hungarian–Ukrainian bilingual public school has been registered, and teaching will begin on 2 September 2024 in the new institution. This announcement was made in a Facebook post by the Home of Ukrainian Traditions Budapest Facebook page.
The Hungarian–Ukrainian Primary and Secondary School Budapest is located in the 21st district of Budapest, Csepel Island, with grades 1–12 to be taught.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary visited President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine in Kyiv last month. Reportedly, it was President Zelenskyy who proposed the idea to open a Hungarian–Ukrainian bilingual school in Hungary. PM Orbán supported the proposal, and pledged that his administration would provide state funding for the project as well. He has followed through on that pledge, and the new institution will receive public funding.
As of March 2024, the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, estimated that
there are around 65,000 Ukrainian refugees residing in Hungary.
However, millions have passed through the country since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Orbán administration has frequently criticized the language restrictions on ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine. In 2019, the Ukrainian legislative body Verkhovna Rada passed a restrictive law, mandating the use of the Ukrainian language in all public institutions. The law came into effect in 2021.
In July 2023, President Zelenskyy signed into law a slight modification of the legislation, allowing schools that had been teaching in one of the 24 official languages of the European Union to continue operations in their native language for an extended period of time, until September 2024. That deadline is rapidly approaching.
With the establishment of the first Hungarian–Ukrainian bilingual school, Hungary demonstrates a radically different approach to minority languages in this country.
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