The last three Moldovan schools in the Odessa region renamed their mother tongue Romanian, the Odessa newspaper Dumskaya reported, being quoted by IPN.

Thus, the phrase “Moldovan language” is no longer used in any of the 16 Romanian language schools in the region.

On this occasion, the source makes reference to the data of the last population census, of 2001, which stipulates that 123,800 Moldovans and 724 Romanians live in the Odessa region. In 16 schools, the educational process until recently was carried out entirely or partially in the language indicated in the documents as Moldovan.

The “Romanianization” of Moldovan schools opens up additional opportunities for students, in addition to enrollment in Romanian universities. In accordance with the law (expert opinion by the Council of Europe and its bodies) on the rights of national minorities (communities) in particular areas, representatives of minorities who went to school before September 1, 2018 have the right to complete secondary education in their mother tongue, if it is one of the EU languages.

Private higher education institutions in Ukraine have the right to choose the language of teaching if it is an official language of the European Union, while ensuring that students from such institutions study the state language as a separate academic discipline.

The publication also reminds of the Moldovan authorities’ incapacity to impose at the respective time the return to normality through a complex move: even if by the Declaration of Independence of 1991, the Romanian language was declared the state language in Moldova, the country’s Constitution, adopted in 1994, stipulated the Moldovan language based on the Latin script. Only on December 5, 2013, the Constitutional Court ruled that from a legal point of view, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution represent a whole and, in case of inconsistencies, the first has greater legal force. Thus, the official language of the Republic of Moldova is Romanian. However, Parliament has never made changes to the Constitution and the Moldovan language is still mentioned there.

The newspaper Dumskaya notes that linguists and politicians still argue whether Moldovan is a single language or a dialect of Romanian, one of the languages of the European Union.

At the same time, it is noted that most of the ethno-cultural associations in the region share the position of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova and even sued the Ministry of Education of Ukraine, seeking changes to the relevant curricula for national schools and renaming of the language of study. Without it, they said, graduates experience problems, for example, when applying to Romanian universities as they have to obtain additional certificates of proficiency in Romanian.