Region: Ukraine education reforms look east

By Yuriy Onyshkiv and Peter Byrne

For the Kyiv Post

The governing coalition loyal to President Viktor Yanukovych has rattled Ukraine's educational system with its sudden decision to move the country away from a European Union standard of 12-year schooling and back to an 11-year system still used in Russia and other former Soviet states.

Providing Yanukovych signs off on the changes, the state will scrap the country's eight-year transition for a 12-year education system with compulsory preschool education for children over the age of 5. Adopted July 6 by a majority of lawmakers backing Yanukovych, the move was necessary to cut expenses amid already-stretched state finances, according to Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk.

While it could cut expenses by reducing the years students spend at school, it does so at a high cost for the nation, critics say. Opposition parties and education experts rushed to condemn the move. They insisted it was immoral to make budget cuts at the expense of education for Ukraine's future generations.

Critics also raised fears that, if implemented, Ukrainian students will now find it harder to study abroad. The plan to move from an 11- to 12-year system traces its roots to 1999 but shifted into high gear in 2002. It was motivated initially by the desire to bring Ukraine's education in line with the Bologna system, an EU-wide system of education.

The switch back to an 11-year system is "a shift away from the European and international standards of secondary education," a former government education official said on condition of anonymity. The official feared that current authorities could ostracize him for publicly criticizing their switch back to the 11-year system.

The transition to a 12-year system has been painful and full of complications. It was intended to make it possible for Ukrainian students to transfer course credits and apply to European or U.S. universities after graduating from high school.

"We just don't have the number of qualified education professionals and resources to do this," Tabachnyk said, emphasizing why a rollback to an 11-year system was necessary.

A senior official ruled out any possible geopolitical underpinnings for the decision, saying it was not driven by efforts under Yanukovych's leadership to revive close ties with Russia.

But the controversial changes seem to have split Ukraine's highest-ranking officials. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one presidential official expressed sharp disapproval of the changes.

Meanwhile, Serhiy Lyovochkin, the presidential chief of staff, said he supports the changes. Lyovochkin also downplayed accusations that the changes, which clearly bring Ukraine in line with Russia's education system, move Ukraine away from EU standards. He suggested the new rules do not contradict the European standards.

But experts say the opposite is true.

"The return to an 11-year secondary education system moves Ukraine away from the European education system, making it even harder in most cases for Ukrainian high school graduates to study directly at universities in the EU," said Volodymyr Kovtunets, a coordinator at the Ukrainian Standardized External Testing Initiative. Parliament spent only 30 minutes debating the changes, which were co-authored by communist lawmaker Kateryna Samoilyk.

After the vote, Tabachnyk, who is widely regarded to be Ukraine-phobic and pro-Russian in his views, told journalists that failure by Parliament to adopt the changes would have resulted in a fiscal catastrophe. He said preserving the current 12-year system would have required the state to provide 17,000 new teaching positions, new school facilities and new school buses.

But the changes might prevent high school graduates from matriculating to Western universities, experts say. Since the Western system is based on 12 years of elementary and high school education, a Ukrainian would have to go through a freshmen year at a Ukrainian university before being accepted by a Western one.

Lilia Hrynevych, the former head of the Kyiv administration's education department, said despite the fact that the eight-year transition to the 12-year system was not managed properly, there is no reason to abandon it altogether.

"The authorities could have acknowledged the country is not yet prepared to complete the process and propose an alternative plan," she said. "They are instead using the general dissatisfaction with botched reforms to introduce a strategic return to the old system, which is one more sign Ukraine is reorienting itself to Russia's education framework."

"The current authorities don't appear to be very interested in education. One reason may be because they think it's easier to rule an uneducated mob," Hrynevych added.

The writers can be reached at news@praguepost.com