By Olha Hembik | 2025-09-19

WARSAW -- In a classroom in Krakow, 13-year-old Vadim carefully writes Ukrainian words like "mova" (language), "dim" (home), and "nezalezhnist" (independence) in his exercise book.

Evacuated from Myrnohrad in Ukraine's Donetsk region three years ago with his mother, Victoria, Vadim now attends Elementary School with Integration Office No. 151, one of the few Polish schools offering Ukrainian language classes, with up to four lessons per week.

"My son has mastered the Polish language very well. Last year he wrote the best essay in the class on Tolkien's work, because [Tolkien] is his favorite writer. But sometimes in conversations at home he inserts Polish words and can't find the corresponding ones in Ukrainian," his mother Victoria told Kontur.

"[Studying Ukrainian at a Polish school] is our way of maintaining a connection with home."

In March, Poland's Ministry of National Education approved new programs allowing schools to teach Ukrainian as a second foreign language.

The Ukrainian House Foundation in Warsaw has championed the effort. The group noted that "the campaign is already bearing fruit," citing an April decision by a Wroclaw gymnasium to permanently add Ukrainian to its curriculum.

The right to choose

On August 23, the foundation presented teaching programs designed for Polish schools.

Larisa Berezhnaya, who moved to Warsaw in 2022, initially enrolled her daughters in the First Ukrainian School.

"I was sure we would be here for no more than two months. I didn't want to stress the girls out with an unfamiliar language. I was definitely going back [home]. I wanted them to study in their native language -- to read, write and converse," she told Kontur.

When Ukrainian schools began charging fees and the war dragged on, Berezhnaya transferred her daughters to a Polish school. At the start of the 2025-26 school year, she launched a petition to add Ukrainian as a second foreign language, encouraged by new programs tailored for foreign schools.

"Fifteen parents, including several Poles, signed the statement to the school principal," she said.

"While the curriculum is still being developed, we have time to exercise the right to choose another language in addition to English. We have German competing with Ukrainian."

Preserving identity

Pawel Levchuk, an associate professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences, said Ukrainian has become more relevant as the number of Ukrainian-speaking children in Poland has surged since 2022. But until recently, schools had no way to offer the language, and intercultural assistants helping refugee students weren’t authorized to teach it.

Because Ukraine's education ministry had approved standards only for adults, Levchuk created his own curriculum. It introduces Ukrainian at the A1 level for grades 7-8 and A2-B1 for lyceums. Open to both Polish and Ukrainian students, the program follows the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and Poland's core curriculum.

The Ukrainian language helps refugee schoolchildren to "not lose their native roots," Levchuk told Kontur.

"Preserving identity is very important at a time when Ukraine is struggling so hard against a strong and dangerous enemy," he said.

Teacher database

Staffing slowed the rollout of Ukrainian in Polish schools. Levchuk built a database of more than 100 qualified teachers, all meeting Polish requirements through philology degrees, pedagogy training or Ukrainian diplomas.

He said schools can offer classes if at least seven students enroll, with parents able to choose teachers from the list. Most candidates are refugees eager to return to their profession.

One of them, veteran teacher Olga Pervova, said she has taught Ukrainian for 25 years and now works for an online school. With her diploma recognized in Poland, she hopes to find a local post.

"I would love to teach. I live in the city of Kalisz. There are 18 primary schools, more than a dozen technical schools, lyceums and two universities," she told Kontur. "I will be glad to work as a Ukrainian language teacher. I hope I can find a job at a school."

Levchuk said teaching Ukrainian as a foreign language shows it is gaining international status. He called it both support for the Ukrainian community and "a tool for countering Russian narratives in Europe." Russian, once dominant among Slavic languages in Polish schools, is losing ground, he added.

A wave of disinformation

Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar called the opportunity to study Ukrainian in Polish schools "a bridge to better understanding, cooperation and solidarity between... nations."

"The opportunity to study Ukrainian as a second foreign language is not only a right guaranteed by Polish law, but also a manifestation of the richness of Poland's cultural heritage, to which Ukrainians, too, are making their own contribution," Bodnar wrote on his Facebook page on September 8.

He mentioned the "wave of disinformation and manipulative comments, both anonymous and from well-known Polish politicians" regarding the teaching of Ukrainian as a second foreign language in Polish schools.

Bodnar said Ukrainian should not be disadvantaged compared with other foreign languages. He noted that as of May 2025, Polish was taught in 577 schools across Ukraine, with more than 99,000 students studying it as a subject or elective and over 92,000 learning it as a second foreign language.