Keeping Ukrainian in the family when everything else is in another language

This one is not paperwork, and it does not have a deadline. It is the thing parents raise once the paperwork is handled: the child now dreams in another language, answers in it, and is quietly becoming someone who understands their grandmother but cannot reply to her.

There is no procedure that fixes that. There are, though, a couple of things worth knowing about rather than discovering in year three.

There is a Ukrainian state school that follows you

The International Ukrainian School (Міжнародна українська школа, МУШ) is a state educational institution operating under the Ministry of Education and Science. It has existed since 2007 — well before the current wave of departures — precisely to keep Ukrainian schooling available to children living anywhere in the world.

The two things that make it useful:

• It issues state-standard education documents. That matters if there is any chance a child later studies in Ukraine, or needs their schooling recognised there.
• It works by externat, a flexible external-study form. That is what makes it survivable alongside a local school, rather than a second full timetable. The school’s site publishes the admission conditions and how external study is organised — assessment, consultations, the individual study plan — which is the thing to read before deciding whether it fits your child.

It reports working across seventeen countries with several thousand students and a network of partner centres, and study there is free.

The trap: two full school days

The most common mistake is enrolling a child in a full Ukrainian programme on top of a full local one, out of a completely understandable fear of losing the connection — and then watching them resent both.

The Ministry’s own guidance exists partly to steer families away from that, toward distance, family, or external forms, and toward verified Ukrainian educational centres abroad where one exists near you. The question worth asking is not “how do we do everything” but “which parts of Ukrainian schooling does this particular child actually need?” — which for many families is the language and the certificate, not the whole curriculum.

What actually keeps a language, honestly

Formal schooling is one input, and not the strongest one. The things that tend to decide it:

• Someone who only speaks Ukrainian to the child. Consistency from one adult beats occasional effort from everyone.
• A reason to use it that is not homework. A grandmother on a video call, cousins, a Saturday group, a football team — anything where Ukrainian is the language of something the child wants.
• Reading for pleasure, in Ukrainian, early enough to become a habit.
• Not correcting every mistake. This is the one parents find hardest. A child who is corrected each time they speak stops speaking.

None of that is our expertise, and none of it needs a website’s permission. But it is the honest answer to “will she keep it”, and it is worth hearing alongside the enrolment forms.

If the connection is already a generation back

Families who left decades ago are usually not maintaining a language but recovering one, and that is a different project — closer to tracing the family in the archives than to schooling. A parish with a Ukrainian-language liturgy, or a community organisation, is often a better first step than a curriculum; both are findable through the registries on where to look.

Where to check

The Ministry of Education and Science and the International Ukrainian School are the authorities on enrolment, recognition of study, and which centres near you are verified. Nothing here is educational or legal advice. If something has gone out of date, tell us.