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Education in Ukraine

I have looked into a few different resources to find what the Ukrainian education system is like. I've looked at Scholaro Database, World Education Services, I found a (admittedly outdated) blog post from a Ukrainian foreign exchange to America, and I interviewed a coworker of mine who moved to America just before he started high school. And I have heard and read some conflicting accounts but most of my sources agree on the core ideas.

Public schools are more popular with under one hundred families choosing to homeschool as of 2019. Ukrainian children are required to have nine years of education, with any education beyond being non compulsory and offering two paths to higher education. Primary School is ages 6 to 10 and grades 1 through 4, Secondary School-first phase, often called middle school, is ages 11 to 15 and grades 5 through 9. At this point one isn't required to go further in their education and can opt to leave school to seek employment. If someone does want to continue going to school they have two options which are a University oriented path or a Vocational Path.

The University path, or Tertiary School, sees students finishing Secondary School (second phase) for the next two years before taking an entrance exam to get into a University. Once admitted to a University it takes an average of four years to obtain a bachelor's degree and another two years to gain a Master's degree, this is similar to what we see in the United States. Ukrainian universities use a "Five point scale" for grading, and the name is a little misleading as there is no grade of 1. Students receive a 5 for "excellent" work, a 4 for "good" work, a 3 for "satisfactory" work, and a 2 for "unsatisfactory work.

The Vocational Path takes between 1.5 and 4 years to complete, depending on the vocation. Completion can bring a range of technical qualifications to anyone that finishes. Completion of a Vocational or Technical training can go on to sit for the same University entrance exams as their counterparts that finished Secondary School second phase. However they can only apply for a Junior Bachelor's which is similar to what we would call an Associate's Degree. After completing the Junior Bachelor's students can work toward a Bachelor's degree or they can continue toward an "Integrated Master's Degree" which is for professional disciplines such as medicine or dentistry.

Primary school and both phases of Secondary School are paid by the public. Half of the funding comes from the city and the other half comes from the national budget. Vocational schools are paid privately. Universities can be state funded or private schools. At a public university students can receive a standard scholarship is their average grade is a 4, but that scholarship can be increased by 25% if their average grade is a 5.

The school year in Ukraine is from September till May. School days for students in Ukraine look quite similar to those in the U.S. The school day is between 6 and 8 hours long depending on the source. This blog by a foreign exchange student from Ukraine says that his school day lasts from 8 in the morning till 3:20 in the afternoon, but my coworker says that he remembers classe starting at 7 in the morning and ending at 9 in the morning and ending at 3 in the afternoon. There could be many reasons for this discrepancy, but the most plausible explanation to me is that no country is a monolith. School Districts all over the U.S. (and even in the same cities) have different starting times, period lengths, and ending times.

Two key differences between a teenager's schooling in Ukraine from the U.S. is that Ukrainian students don't pick their school schedule and they stay with the same class of students from primary school until graduation. I want to clarify that they don't stay in the same classroom every period, every year, until graduation: they just stay with the same class of fellow students. For example you are one of a total of 100 students graduating from 10th grade from your school. But since you were 6 years old you've stayed in the same cohort of 15-20 other kids.

In the blog I referenced by Max, the foreign exchange student, he says that in the year before he came to the U.S. he and the rest of his class studied Ukrainian Language, Ukrainian Literature, English, French , Algebra, Geometry, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Geography, Art, PE, Civics, History of Ukraine, World history, Health and Working. This might sound daunting, but it's important to know that they don't have each of those classes everyday. Specifically, Max points out that he had English four times a week, but Health only once a week.

All things considered, on the surface it would appear that Ukraine and the U.S. aren't too dissimilar in education structure. Ukraine places more value and spends more money on a national level on the foundations of education for their children. And their children study many of the same core science subjects like mathematics, sciences, local history and world history, as well as classes like Physical Education and Health.

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Nonverbal Messages

It's vital to understand the nonverbal communication cues of different cultures when interacting with someone from outside your own culture. For example one of the most innocuous signs in America is the 'thumbs up'. In the North America, Ukraine, and other parts of the world this is a positive sign. But in some parts of the Middle East a thumbs up is a profane sign that insinuates that one is telling another to "Sit on it". I can't think of a more awkward social encounter than accidently offending someone that you intending to thank or show appreciation to.

Obstacles in nonverbal communication can occur even within the same culture. Non verbal communication isn't limited to hand signs, nodding, and eye contact while conversing with someone. Nonverbal messages include the way we dress, our posture, and facial expressions even when we aren't having a conversation. I particularly like an example in Communication Between Cultures where they mention someone frowning with the sun in their eyes accidentally conveying anger to an observer. The unconscious reaction of squinting and frowning into the sun has just as big an impact as the conscience choice of the clothes we put on in the morning.

Facial Expressions in Ukraine: According to Cultural Atlas and the SNTC Guide to Ukraine it's unlikely to see Ukrainians smile in public toward a stranger. They will smile while in conversation and will be expressive with friends, but not just walking past strangers in the street as we might do in America. So it's important to interpret a stranger's lack of smile, not as rudeness or dislike, but as reservation.

Paralanguage in Ukraine: Ukrainians tend to speak a little quieter than we do in America. It's considered rude to speak loudly which can result in some people even speaking a little too quietly. This is something I've observed, but not realized until recently. There's a relatively high Ukrainian population in my city and a good portion of the customers that come my workplace are Ukrainian. I've noticed that some of the older Ukrainians or the individuals that have immigrated more recently tend to speak a little quieter.

A byproduct of speaking quietly is that Ukrainians tend to stand close to one another when talking. The Cultural Atlas says that Ukrainians tend to stand a little less than arm's length apart when talking. This is something that I've noticed at work as well. There are a few customers that tend to stand a little too close to you, by American standards, and most of those customers are Ukrainian. It's interesting that my American perception of the nonverbal act of people standing closely to me didn't allow room for that being normal and accepted in another culture.

Ukraine is a polychronic society, which means that schedules are little more flexible which can allow for working on more tasks simultaneously. In fact, The Cross Cultural Management Guide for Ukraine advised that when working with employees from Ukraine its important to set clear expectations for work schedules. It's my understanding that this advice would be more for a multinational company that has a Ukrainian division, or maybe someone who hires a freelancer from Ukraine. It's important to understand this kind of difference in culture because it helps to set realistic expectations. If we don't communicate our expectations or intentions verbally, its easy to let our assumptions of nonverbal messages create a false narrative in our minds.

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Verbal Messages

The official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian and according to this study performed in 2022 50% of the respondents spoke only Ukrainian at home, with another 12% speaking mostly Ukrainian. Russian is the next most spoken language and according to the same study 8% spoke only Russian and 7% of respondents spoke mainly Russian. 19% of respondents said that they speak a mix of Ukrainian and Russian at home. I've posted a graph of the study below.

If you can't read Ukrainian, that's quite alright, thankfully Ukrainian researchers use the same Arabic numerals as most English speakers. The 2022 study was a continuation of the same study done in 2017. The dark blue color represents those who reportedly spoke only Ukrainian, the light blue is for mostly Ukrainian, the grey is a mix of Ukrainian and Russian, the pink is for mostly Russian, and the red is for only Russian.

English is far from being a lingua franca in Ukraine. A lingua franca is a language that's used when neither speaker in a conversation shares a common first language. For example, according to this report, from Harvard Business Review, some multinational companies are moving toward using English as an official language. But Ukraine isn't a multinational corporation, it's a sovereign state. A report from "News of Ukraine" says that 44% of Ukrainians can't speak English at all, about 19% can read, write, or speak a little, and only 1% of the respondents claim to be fluent in English. You might not need to be fluent in Ukrainian to travel successfully in Ukraine, but a conversational understanding of Ukrainian would be necessary.

Here are a few words to help get you started (a little hint: there aren't any silent letters in the English phonetic spellings, try to pronounce every letter)

Hello - Pryvit (Priv-eet.)

Thank You - Dyakuyu (Dyah-kue-yue)

Yes - Tak (Tock)

No - Nemaye (Nem-ah-yay)

Please - Budʹ laska (Boot La-ska)

Can you help me? - Mozhesh dopomohty meni (Moze-esh Du-poe-mock-tee Men-ee)

I don't understand - Ya ne rozumiyu (Ya Nay Rose-uh-mee-yue)

I don't speak Ukrainian - YA ne rozmovlyayu ukrayinsʹkoyu (Ya Nay Rose-mohv-lay-yue Yue-Kranes-Koe-Yue)

My name is - Ukrainian is a gendered language and there's a different conjugation for the word 'is' based on if you're introducing yourself as a male or female. For a male use " Mene zvutʹ " (Meh-neh Z'vute) and for a female use "Mene zvaty" (Meh-neh Z'vah-tee).

And one of the more important phrases to learn in any language:

Where's the restroom/toilet? - De tualet (Deh Tuu-uh-let)

A coworker of mine is a second generation American whose parents are from Ukraine. His family speaks mostly Russian at home, but he does understand and speak a little Ukrainian, so I asked him to help me with some of these pronunciations. He told me that Ukrainian is a fast language, and even he gets lost sometimes when speaking the language. A word that gave me particular trouble from this list was "dopomohty". I listened to the translation probably thirty times and my coworker had to work with me on it for what seemed like the longest five minutes.

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I took this page from the official Visit Ukraine website and used the first paragraph. The page automatically loads in English for me, so I first had to translate the page to Ukrainian. Then I ran that paragraph through Google Translate and the differences between the two English paragraphs were interesting. While mostly similar there were a few nouns and adjectives that were synonymous.

For example, the first sentence on the English website reads: "Ukraine is a perfect destination for history lovers who adore visiting historical spots, such as beautiful castles." While the English translation of the Ukrainian website reads: "Ukraine is an ideal destination for history buffs who like to visit historical sites such as beautiful castles." Each sentence conveys the same idea, but uses slightly different words. I believe this is because someone who's fluent in English wrote the entry for the website, but when translated from Ukrainian by a program, some of the feeling in the words is lost.

Language influences our view of reality in many ways. The simplest way is by giving us words to perceive the world around us. If a language lacks words for direction, color, or words of measurement then a native speaker of that language could lack the concept provided by those words. For instance if a culture from a hot climate has a language with no word for "cold" then a native speaker would be quite surprised if they were to climb a mountain or travel outside their home climate and experience a climate that's markedly colder. It's important to recognize this when communicating with other cultures. We should be cognizant of the ideas that our communication partners might not be familiar with, and at the same time understand the shortcomings of our own language

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This is a loose timeline of Ukrainian history. Three points that I want to delve deeper into are the Kievan Rus' era, The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth era, and World War I.

Kievan Rus was initially established by Varangians, which were Viking conquerors and settlers that came from present day Sweden. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle the first ruler of Kievan Rus was Oleg the Wise and he initially extended his control in the area to protect his trade routes, but fought a war of conquest against the early Turks to gain the first real expansion of territory. Kievan Rus' became an economic leader of the territory and traded heavily with the Byzantine Empire. When Volodimer the First converted to Orthodox Christianity in 980 Kievan Rus' became a religious ally of the Byzantines as well. The late 11th centure saw the initial decline of the state of Kievan Rus' and regional powers took more control in the absence of a strong centralized power and it's economy was damaged when their major ally, The Byzantine Empire, collapsed. The siege of Kiev by the Mongols in 1240 signaled the end of the Kievan Rus' but the Mongols.

In 1569 Ukraine was under Polish rule and when the Union of Lublin was established they were integrated into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This time period saw new colonization efforts with new cities being founded and the expansion of more areas of Ukraine. The foundations of new schools brought European Renaissance to Ukraine. Polish immigration during this time brought Catholicism, particularly to Ukrainian nobles. Tensions rose in the region because the commoners were still largely Orthodox Christian. Polish rule also saw the introduction of Cossacks. These were Ruthenian and Ukrainian peasants who fled serfdom. Many were enlisted into the Commonwealth's army and they participated in many wars on the Eastern border. Despite their usefulness in battle a lot of the nobility still wanted to force the Cossacks into serfdom, which led to rebellions directed at the Commonwealth.

During World War I Ukraine wasn't a unified country, it was split between Russia and Austro-Hungary. But there was a lot of fighting on Ukrainian land. About three and half million Ukrainians fought for the Russian Army and about a quarter of million fought for Austro-Hungary. This means that Ukrainians were fighting each other during many encounters including the Brusilov Offensive and the Battle of Zborov. Attempts were made at the end of WWI to unify Ukraine and form an independent state. However each attempt failed and ultimately the Treaty of Versaille split Ukraine amongst four regional countries: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Russia.

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The Making of Modern Ukraine by Timothy Snyder

This is a great series of lectures by Princeton University professor, Timothy Snyder. He graciously posted his lecture series on YouTube and I think it's great that if you want an in depth and free education on the history of Ukraine you can watch his entire series; and if you only want to learn more about specific eras in Ukrainian history it's as easy as scrolling through the 23 lectures to find what you're looking for. As a lecture based format each video is just under an hour which makes for easy viewing or, my personal go-to, putting it on in the background while getting some chores done around the house.

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Worldview

The dominant worldview in Ukraine is religious, primarily Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Eastern Orthodox Christianity is still Christianity, albeit, a different sect. As the textbook, Communication Between Cultures, says the three main sects of Christianity are the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and Protestantism. It's important to understand that each of these three churches share the same core beliefs. Christianity is monotheistic and they believes in the Trinity. Belief in the Trinity is defined as the belief that God is manifested in three distinct personages: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Easter Orthodox Church also venerates (but does not worship) saints, much in the same way as the Western Catholic Church.

According to a study from 2022 done by the  Kyiv International Institute of Sociology 85 percent of Ukrainians identify as Christians with 72% of those claiming the Eastern Orthodox Church as their specific denomination.

Some cultural expressions of Eastern Orthodoxy are found in the holidays like Easter and Christmas that are widely celebrated throughout Ukraine. The decorating of Easter eggs, called pysanky, is a tradition unique to Ukraine. Christmas in Ukraine was officially moved to December 25th in 2017 and is a state holiday. Before that, Christmas was celebrated on January 7th according to the Julian Calendar. Interestingly enough, the famous Carol of the Bells is a Ukrainian melody called Shchedryk, which means Bountiful Evening in English. Ukrainian Christmas is celebrated over 13 days staring with Christmas Eve and ending on January 6th which Ukrainians recognize as the day of Jesus's baptism. Christmas Eve is typically a family day marked by a dinner of traditional Christmas dishes. On Jesus's baptism day people will swim or bathe outdoors, similar to an American's "polar plunge".

According to the Cultural Atlas Ukraine has no official state religion and there is a formal separation of church and state. However with such a high population of Eastern Orthodox Christians, it's hard to truly separate the opinions of the church from the actions of the government. And some religious ceremonies transcend piety. An example given from Cultural Atlas is child baptism. Some less observant Ukrainians will still participate in baptising their child, less so for religious adherence, but more as a symbol of protection.

So all in all, Ukraine isn't that different from the United States in regards to worldview. There's a dominant Christian religious worldview with a cultural focus on holidays and celebrations, and while people might identify with that church observance is highly varied.

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Family Structure and Function

According to the World Culture Encyclopedia and PAX.org Ukrainian family structure is based around the extended family with a patriarchal head of the family. Even though multiple generations don't live in the same household, nuclear families will remain closer in proximity to their extended family. In this way, the nuclear family has some independence from the extended family but that proximity provides a healthy support network when needed.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Ukraine boasts a 100% literacy rate as of 2021, with 67.5% speaking Ukrainian as a first language. In 2012 Ukraine's Constitutional Court ruled that a language spoken by 10% of the population, or a regional language, could be used officially by government institutions like schools and courts. This was overruled in 2018, thereby reinforcing Ukrainian as the official national language to be written and spoken in all government institutions. This ruling combined with the earlier fact of literacy means that children in Ukraine are being connected to their history and culture through language and writing.

Historically men have been the heads of the households, working outside the home and bearing the brunt of financial responsibility. Conversely women in Ukraine have historically kept the home and raised children. This dynamic is changing, especially in urban areas where Ukraine is seeing more women seeking work outside the home. The modern nuclear family is having fewer children than traditional families. According to World Bank Group, fertility was at it's highest in recent memory in 1960 at 2.2 births per woman, now the fertility rate is 1.2; so on average families are having one less child than they were in 1960.

Household chores are still divided on societal gender norms. Women typically do more cooking and cleaning with daughters helping with those chores. Boys still share with the division of household tasks, but rarely work outside the home to support the family financially. In fact, it's rare that any Ukrainian teenagers perform any work outside the home and they may not be used to handling or managing money. While it's not uncommon here in the U.S. to see teenagers working outside the home to pay for their own entertainment or extracurricular activities, in Ukraine this is seen as the parents' responsibility.

Ukraine has seen mass emigration since the Russian invasion in February 2022. Because this is such a recent shift there hasn't had much effect on familial structures or dynamics. Globalization hasn't had much effect on family structure over the past ten to fifteen years either, and that is evidenced by Ukraine's ethnic percentages. They are a primarily Slavic population with almost 80% of the population being Ukrainian and just over 17% being Russian (as of 2001 according to the CIA World Factbook). Because of this, Ukraine isn't seeing a large influx of minority cultures that acculturate their own practices into that of Ukraine.

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Reference Page

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/ukraine/#people-and-society

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine#Sport

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borscht

https://ukraine.ua/faq/how-to-cook-traditional-ukrainian-food/#:~:text=The%20most%20famous%20traditional%20Ukrainian,is%20not%20an%20exhaustive%20list.&text=Borshch%20(sometimes%20written%20as%20borsch,soup%20with%20distinctive%20red%20colour.

https://pax.org/images/pax/FLEX/FLEX_Country_Profiles/FLEX_country_profiles_2019_Ukraine_X.pdf

https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Ukrainians-Kinship-Marriage-and-Family.html

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=UA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church#Virgin_Mary_and_other_saints

Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, E. R., Roy, C. S., & Fujimura, C. K. (2025). Communication between cultures (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.

https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/ukrainian-culture/ukrainian-culture-religion

https://ukraine.ua/visit/christmas-in-ukraine/

https://zbruc.eu/node/114247

https://hbr.org/2012/05/global-business-speaks-english

https://galinfo.com.ua/news/mayzhe_44_ukraintsiv_ne_znayut_angliyskoi_movy__opytuvannya_403268.html#google_vignette

https://www.scholaro.com/db/Countries/Ukraine/Education-System

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Ukraine

https://wenr.wes.org/2019/06/education-in-ukraine

https://www.kaleookalani.org/3074/uncategorized/how-do-students-study-in-ukraine/#:~:text=In%20one%20day%2C%20a%20typical,but%20only%20one%20of%20Health.

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Blog Post #1

I've chosen to study the country of Ukraine for my blog project. While this is a country that's currently on the world stage due to Russia invading their country, this isn't why I chose their country for this project. My city has a relatively large Ukrainian population and as part of my work in sales, a good percentage of our customer base is Ukrainian. So I chose this country to learn more about their culture, break down any unconscious communication barriers I may have, and hopefully foster a better working relationship with those individuals.

Ukraine's culture is impacted by their faith; Orthodox Christianity is practiced by an estimated two-thirds of the population. One long-standing tradition that even predates their adoption of Christianity is decorating Easter eggs, called pysanky. The egg has a pattern drawn on with wax before the being placed into the dye. Then the wax is removed and the pattern is revealed.

Partly due to the influence of the USSR, Ukraine also has an athletic culture as well. The most popular sport in the country is soccer. Their national team made a world debut in 2006 where they reached the quarterfinals.

An interesting note on Ukraine's power infrastructure that I learned in my preliminary research is that they are the 7th largest producer of nuclear energy in the world. Even after the Chernobyl disaster they continued to cultivate that resource and before the 2022 invasion they had 15 active nuclear reactors and were building two more, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Ukraine has a history of traditional folk music and dance which is still celebrated today. The hopak is a traditional dance that is seen at cultural events. Modern Ukrainian music resembles much of western popular music with rock, pop, electronic music, and rap all being produced by Ukrainian artists.

Ukrainian cuisine has unique aspects, but I would say it isn't too dissimilar from other foods we see around the world. Like many cultures they use potatoes in many dishes such as soups (borscht), deruny (potato pancakes), and dumplings called varenyky. They are also home to the dish named for their capital city, chicken Kyiv. Other dishes are unique takes on some things I consider common dishes; like syrnyky which are a pancake made from cheese curds which is topped with honey, jam, condensed milk, or sour cream. I would say that something I find extremely unique is how many dishes include sour cream as a key ingredient or preferred topping.

“In studying other cultures, we do so very often from the perspective of our own culture.” We see the world through tinted glasses. The glasses are tinted by our own life experiences and attitudes. For example, borscht is a very common soup in Ukraine. The base of the soup is beets and it will usually have meat and other vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, and cabbage as well. My personal culture (and my palate) say that this soup sounds bitter and sour and it might taste like dirt. But I need to put my own culture to the side and be open to the Ukrainian culture. This blog is about Ukraine, not my perception of Ukraine.