All schools should have enough Ukrainian language and literature teachers by September 1, says president

15:26

Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko has called on regional governors to ensure the observation of the law on the functioning of the state language.

"Your duty is to ensure the implementation of this law [on the functioning of the state language]," he said at a meeting with regional governors, the head of Crimea, and the mayors of Kyiv and Sevastopol on Wednesday.

He said that there were currently schools in Ukraine that did not have enough Ukrainian language teachers, and stressed the need to improve the situation by the start of the new academic year.

"As of September 1, we shouldn't have the situation when schools don't have enough Ukrainian language teachers and Ukrainian literature teachers," Yuschenko said.

He gave the participants in the meeting 30 days to analyze and collect statistics at all schools regarding the number of the mentioned teachers.

"Please don't ignore this question. The state starts from this," he said.

Yuschenko also said that Ukraine should give "full support to the development of the languages of national minorities."