Implementation of high school reform discussed in Kropyvnytskyi
On 21 November, a public discussion of the high school reform was held in Kropyvnytskyi, organised by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in cooperation with the Swiss-Ukrainian project DECIDE. The event has brought together heads of communities, managers in the field of education, representatives of regional authorities, heads of vocational (technical) and professional higher education institutions to find effective solutions and take into account the situation at the local level.
As a result of the discussion, 58% of participants said that the implementation rules of the specialised secondary education reform had become clearer. 65% plan to have an academic lyceum in their community, and another 4% would like to have a regional lyceum in their community.
Dmytro Zavhorodnii, the Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, emphasised the importance of the changes being implemented:
“Discussions about high school reform often seem to be a tug-of-war between two poles - accessibility and quality of education. In these discussions, the Ministry of Education and Science is on the side of quality. This means that all managerial decisions have to be made on the basis of the highest value of quality and how to ensure that this quality is accessible to children - by the distance to school, safety of the route, etc."
Valentyna Poltorak, DECIDE Project Manager, noted that the network of educational institutions that will be formed in cooperation with communities will respond to the needs of students and allow for high-quality professional training:
“The organisation of a network of educational institutions is the issue of high school reform that is of the greatest concern to regions and communities. That is why we are engaging all communities in the country in discussions to decide together what a specialised high school should look like, where it should be located, and who should be its founder. During the discussions, we are looking for the best solution that will allow us to provide access to quality education for every student, regardless of whether they live in a village or a city."