As of Oct. 1, English language proficiency will become a mandatory requirement for appointment to senior positions in the Ukrainian Presidential Administration.
Member of Parliament Mustafa Nayyem announced the news in a Facebook post on Sept. 17. He added that existing employees in management positions would be given until Jan. 1, 2017, to improve their language skills to the required level. Lessons will be provided free of charge.
Testing of existing employees’ language skills began on Sept. 17.
Dmytro Shymkiv, deputy head of the Presidential Administration, wrote on Facebook that the Cambridge English Language Assessment would be used to judge employees’ English skills and thanked Cambridge University for supplying 300 free tests.
The move is supported by the Go Global initiative, which was launched in spring by Ukrainian civil activists and members of parliament.
Describing itself as a non-partisan, non-governmental organization, its aim is to promote learning foreign languages for the social and political development of Ukraine. Go Global is supported by President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the British Council and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.
The Go Global website lists “introduce language proficiency requirements for public servants” as one of its main objectives. Its other priorities include raising awareness of the benefits of learning a foreign language, increasing demand for lessons, aligning Ukrainian educational systems with those in Europe and inviting native speakers to volunteer as teachers and language-learning partners.
By 2020, Go Global wants 100 percent of Ukraine’s Class A civil servants to speak English or French, the two official languages of the Council of Europe. It also wants 75 percent of Ukrainian high school graduates to master two foreign languages and for Ukraine to rank among the top 30 countries in the Education First English Proficiency Index.
The EF English Proficiency Index began collecting data in 2007 and has published annual international rankings since 2011. The rankings are based on the results of their English test, which is available to download for free online and completed by self-selected candidates worldwide. Each country is awarded one of five proficiency levels ranging from ‘very high’ to ‘very low’.
According to the 2014 EF English Proficiency Index, Ukraine has a ‘low’ proficiency, ranked at 44 out of 63 participating countries worldwide. In Europe, only Turkey has a lower rank at 47.
The 2014 report also classed Ukraine as one of only three countries in Europe recording a decline in English proficiency, with a score that has fallen 4.59 points since 2007. However, the data for 2015 has yet to be released.
