Language policies in Ukrainian higher education : Language in the firing line?

Ukraine has been a site of cyclical conflict over language rights and policies for decades. Similar to Eastern bloc countries, Ukraine in the post-Soviet era saw tensions between the then lingua franca, Russian and the national language, Ukrainian. Already before its independence in 1991, Ukraine launched initiatives to revitalise and modernise their language right after breaking from Soviet rule. Russia’s war against Ukraine has given a significant lift to the popularity and learning of Ukrainian. Regarding English, the nation is starting from a low base even though with a strong decision to join the Western world with its values of democracy, human rights and freedom. Thus, lingo-political tensions in Ukraine include the languages Ukrainian, Russian, English and other European languages. This study asks how Ukrainian Higher Educational Establishments (HEIs) translate the triple language agenda of de-Russification, Ukrainisation and Englishisation into their language policies. It does so by investigating websites and official documents of fifteen universities in Ukraine previously selected for the study by the British Council, using the framework of critical discourse analysis and inductive coding. Results reveal that Ukrainian HEIs focus on Ukrainian and English in their vision and recommended practice, while acknowledging other European languages. The special status of the languages of national minorities is endorsed in many HEIs, but never singling out Russian. Ukrainian HEIs develop their language policies both in compliance with state legislation and with a keen awareness of European standards. Linguistically, westernisation of Ukrainian HEIs strongly favours English as a global language, although other European languages are considered. Concerning the Ukrainian-Russian tensions, we observe increasing initiatives supported both by educational institutions and the population as a whole, to revalidate Ukrainian and limit the use of Russian.