A teacher was fired from a lyceum in Chernivtsi. She had previously called a student a “bastard” after asking him to speak Ukrainian

At Lyceum No. 5 "Oriyana" in Chernivtsi, a geography teacher was fired for communicating with students in Russian and calling a student a "bastard" when he asked to switch to Ukrainian.

This was reported by the director of the institution Halyna Abramyuk in a comment to Suspilne.

According to her, the commission completed its internal investigation on December 1. After that, the teacher wrote a statement, and the administration issued an order to dismiss her. Last week, she was also suspended from her duties as a class teacher.

In late November, a video went viral online showing a teacher speaking Russian and reacting sharply to a studentʼs request to switch to the state language. She also said after the incident that he and his classmates who opposed it "should study geography more than anyone else".

The city education department confirmed the incident — the students submitted a written statement, and the teacher wrote an explanatory note.

The head of the regional department of the State Education Quality Service Oksana Paliychuk explained that the teacher violated the law on the language of the educational process. It states that the Ukrainian language should be used not only in lessons, but also in communication between teachers and students.

Since all the violations were committed during a single incident, the teacher could have been held accountable only once by law — by issuing a reprimand or conducting an extraordinary attestation. However, the school administration decided to fire her.

• In April, a survey showed that the number of people in Ukraine who believe that it is unnecessary to study Russian in schools is increasing — in 2023 there were 52%, and now — 58%. At the same time, the share of those who believe that Russian should be taught to children has decreased to 38%.

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