Police pressure on parents fighting against closure of Ukrainian language schools

The parents of two of the Makiyivka schools which the a court has ordered should be closed are firmly refusing to take their children’s documents from the school. School No. 100 has 16 student papers, while School No. 3 85. “While court proceedings continue, the school must function. We’re not going anywhere, not on 1 September, nor on the second.”, promises Olena Anufriyeva, mother of two students of School No. 100.

However the Internet publication OstroV reports that on 31 August in the evening, the parents who are standing firm received visits by officers of the district police and Service for Juvenile Affairs handing out explanations on how to teach and bring up school children.

“We were all handed a so-called Explanatory Act on maintenance, upbringing and education of children. It says that according to a ruling from the Donetsk Court of Appeal, the educational team of our school will be dismissed from 1 September and we bear personal (including criminal) responsibility for our children receiving general secondary education”, Hanna Nazilova who has a child in School No. 3 explained.

She is convinced that officials have in this manner only confirmed what they did not want to admit previously. This is that according to the Law on Education, parents have the right at their own discretion to choose an educational establishment for their children.  More information about this confrontation can be found here.