Today Ukrainian society is witnessing killing of Ukrainian education, most clearly seen in the draft state budget for 2017. The MP from the political party “Ukrainian Patriots Association – UKROP” Iryna Konstankevych, elected in the 23th district in Volyn, told it to the journalists in the Verkhovna Rada.
“Education is a strategic field and we don’t support it. This is clearly seen in the draft budget for the next year. These things are visible to the naked eye. We are witnessing killing of our national education,” said the MP.
Iryna Konstankevych has stressed that saving several dozen thousand of expenditures on education today, the state loses millions in the future. The MP believes that one of the biggest threats is transferring of vocational training funding to local budgets, most of which are unable to cope with such burden.
In addition, another harsh impact on education is disguised under children’s formal switching to individual training by closing rural schools. Thus, instead of 15 hours of classes a week per pupil, as prescribed by the law, they will have only 5 hours. According to Iryna Konstankevych, last year only in some districts of Lviv and Volyn regions from 40 to 80 rural schools were switched to individual training. “This approach is absolutely wrong. We cannot kill rural education without taking into account what it can give us in the future,” added the MP.
According to Iryna Konstankevych, the situation with implementing some reforms, without taking into consideration all the consequences, is also alarming. For example, abolition of knowledge assessment and learning multiplication tables in the second grade will slow down the development of children’s logic, memory and thinking. Thus these shortcomings of primary school will transform smoothly into the problems of secondary education, and in 5-7 years Ukraine will face humanitarian disaster with social, educational and demographic components, summed up the politician.
It is to be recalled, the draft state budget for 2017 proposes to charge the local budgets with expenditures on utilities and salaries for administrative and technical staff of medical and educational institutions.
