For the First Time in Poland: Students Pass Exam in Ukrainian as a Foreign Language
On May 6, 2026, a landmark event took place in Poland: graduates sat the state exam — the matura — in Ukrainian as a foreign language for the first time. The exam programme was developed with the support of the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation and published with the assistance of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Poland.
Ukrainian — Alongside English and French
From 2026, Ukrainian can be chosen as a subject in Poland’s State School-Leaving Examination on equal footing with English, German, or French — not as a minority language, but as a fully-fledged foreign language.
The exam is available at three levels: basic, extended, and bilingual. Passing it successfully enables students to receive a school-leaving certificate and apply to Polish higher education institutions.
“The matura question is also a question of recognising the Ukrainian language at an official level — and in this case Ukrainian has become one of those important foreign languages that can be taken in three possible variants: at basic level, at extended level, and at bilingual level — which will allow, firstly, to obtain a school-leaving certificate, and secondly, to apply to Polish universities,” says Pavlo Levchuk, Associate Professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Who Is Behind the Programme
The programme’s author is Pavlo Levchuk, Associate Professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and a researcher of Ukrainian-Polish linguistic and cultural ties. As we reported earlier, he has been actively promoting the Ukrainian language within the Polish education system — in particular, holding meetings with educators in Głogów and Wrocław. As we noted, Pavlo Levchuk has repeatedly emphasised: the question of language is a question of state policy.
We have achieved this — and it is only the beginning of systematic work to establish the status of the Ukrainian language in Europe.
