Since 2017, the Transcarpathian Hungarian community has been persistently striving to eliminate the unfavorable restrictions imposed on them. Through peaceful means, within the framework of applicable laws and with the impact of international forums, our struggle has achieved partial results.

In 2023, the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, adopted amendments to the Law on National Minorities, which were intended to address the legal restrictions affecting education, language use, and other areas of national minority life. These amendments required adjustments to existing laws to bring them into compliance and the enactment of numerous decrees to restore rights that had been curtailed over the past decade.

While the law did not fully reinstate comprehensive native-language education at all levels, it did limit the compulsory teaching of subjects in Ukrainian to Ukrainian language and literature and the history of Ukraine. However, the law left loopholes, allowing educational institution leaders and operators to expand this list of subjects without consulting parents and teachers.

An improvement for 2024 was the reinstatement of the opportunity for graduating students to take electronic multi-tests in their language of instruction for their final exams, which also serve as university entrance exams.

During the 2024–2025 academic year, our schools will continue operating under the experimental curriculum framework. The ministry assured our association in writing that this framework could be applied until 2027, after which decisions on its continuation will depend on the results of the pilot project. Until then, our schools will apply this curriculum framework, which more or less balances the number of language competency development classes and allows for teaching subjects that preserve identity.

This year marked the first national subject competition in Romanian, Slovak, and Hungarian. The Transcarpathian Hungarian Pedagogical Association (KMPSZ) contributed to organizing the event, and, thanks to the support of the NSRI, the winners participated in a trip to Hungary.

With the support of Hungary’s Ministry of Interior, we successfully implemented all our previous programs, including subject competitions, summer talent camps, teacher academies, and diaspora programs. Additionally, schools received textbooks and workbooks for Hungarian language and literature by September.

Thanks to the support of the Secretariat for National Policy, we were able to maintain our organization and schools. The Secretariat’s support provided allowances for teachers, workers in the diaspora, and commuting teachers, as well as educational, childcare, and meal subsidies for children studying in Hungarian sections. This year, we also organized the “Határtalanul” summer school and day camps in the diaspora.

We thank all organizations and institutions whose contributions helped ensure that Hungarian-language education in Transcarpathia did not collapse despite the war.

On December 2, 2024, the Ukrainian State Committee on Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience held a forum in Nevytske to discuss the situation of the Hungarian minority, with the participation of high-ranking Ukrainian and foreign officials and Hungarian minority organizations. Representatives of Hungarian organizations expressed their views on the situation of the Hungarian community and outlined the issues that need to be addressed to restore the minority rights taken away or curtailed since 2017. Hungarian organizations agreed that without restoring the collective rights guaranteed in the 1991 National Minorities Law and the 1996 Ukrainian Constitution, and ensured until 2014, the situation of the Hungarian community in Ukraine cannot be satisfactorily resolved.

Based on the discussions at the conference and today, the General Assembly of KMPSZ also supports the reinstatement and enforcement of the opportunities for mother-tongue education for the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia at the legislative level:

• Restore and guarantee national-cultural autonomy, i.e., the collective rights of minorities;
• Full use of the mother tongue and the right to mother-tongue education in state educational institutions;
• The use of national symbols;
• The celebration of national holidays;
• Ensure the needs of minorities in literature, art, and media usage;
• Within educational institutions, ensure the training of teachers, cultural workers, and other minority professionals;
• There should be no discrimination based on national minority or linguistic grounds;
• Every citizen should have the right to choose the language of education;
• Restore the national educational institutional status for communities, which would apply to institutions with at least one class taught in the language of the national minority.

In national minority schools, to preserve the culture of the national community:

• The language of the educational process should be Hungarian;
• Allow free use of national symbols and celebration of national holidays;
• Permit the establishment of small classes;
• Allow lyceum education (grades 10–12) even for a single class;
• Ensure full state funding for institutions;
• Include the institution’s name in Hungarian in its statute, seal, signage;
• Include mandatory subjects that preserve identity: ethnography, the history, and geography of the Hungarian people;
• Allow partial maintenance of school records in the mother tongue: schedules, class corners, posters, school visuals and announcements, the school’s website, notices, certificates;
• Record students’ names in the class registers and electronic diaries in Hungarian following Hungarian spelling rules;
• Allow parent-teacher meetings, teacher conferences, and other event records to be maintained in Hungarian;
• Allow final exams at the end of grades 4, 9, and 11 to be taken in Hungarian for general subjects, and make exams mandatory in both the state language and the language of instruction;
• Ensure equal opportunities in knowledge measurement even after 2030;
• Provide subsidies to private institutions for teaching state-mandated subjects;
• Allow participants in school events, parent-teacher meetings, and teacher conferences to speak in the language most comfortable to them;
• In interpersonal communication, allow everyone to use their mother tongue or a mutually understood language, such as Hungarian, Ukrainian, or another language;
• Restore opportunities for mother-tongue education in vocational training in Transcarpathia;
• Organize Hungarian language matriculation exams at independent testing centers for students who completed their secondary education in Hungarian;
• Offer Hungarian as a foreign language matriculation exams at independent testing centers, equivalent to other foreign language entrance exams for further education;
• When appointing principals to state and municipal educational institutions, set the required language proficiency level for the state language at an intermediate (B2) level, aligning with the law on the use of the state language, which requires free use of the state language for the position, a requirement also applicable to English as another state language in Ukraine. This criterion corresponds to the B2 level;
• In institutions with classes or groups taught in a minority language, one of the institution’s leaders should speak the respective minority language;
• Recognize the international accreditation of higher education institutions at the national level;
• Allow the use of EU languages in scientific publications and theses;
• Consider the provisions of the minority law when adopting any new public education laws;
• Ensure access to sign language for minorities in need;
• In state higher education institutions, allow the senate to decide to teach one or more subjects in English or another EU language;
• In scientific and technical activities, permit the use of English or other EU languages alongside the state language.

Beyond educational issues, we maintain the following demands to ensure and restore our rights in the future:

• The scope of the minority law should extend beyond settlements and cities to micro-regions and districts where the respective minority’s proportion reaches the legally accepted threshold. We insist that this proportion be set at ten percent, as ensured by the 2012 law on the use of regional languages. Raising this proportion would infringe minority rights.
• We find it impractical that local governments must pass separate resolutions to apply the language rights of national minorities specified in the law, as this makes the application of the law contingent on the goodwill of the majority.
• When writing names in Latin script, consider the rules for minority language use, as transcription often significantly distorts names.
• Ensure parliamentary representation for national minorities, as previously practiced: create a single-member constituency for a compactly living minority where that minority constitutes at least 51 percent of the population. If this is not restored, develop new procedures to ensure all recognized national minorities in Ukraine can participate in parliamentary work with voting rights or at least as advocates.
• National minority educational institutions should be allowed to issue certificates of student performance in the minority language.
• Enable the use of minority languages not only in emergency medical care but also during all medical examinations and treatments.
• During elections, provide multilingual ballots as previously practiced.
• Ensure all topographical information (place names, street signs) is displayed in the minority language in areas where the minority language is accepted.
• Allow the use of national symbols by national minorities.
• Establish an independent human rights commissioner to oversee compliance with minority rights in Ukraine.

Berehove, December 7, 2024

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