Kyiv, March 19, 2014 – As of today no single educational institution of the Crimea was transferred under the subordination of Russia, despite the pressure exercised over the academic community. Such statement was made by Serhiy Kvit, Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, during the press briefing in the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center.
“All educational instututions of Crimea remain Ukrainian. Lecturers receive their salary, the students – their study allowance. We do not reject them, as they are the citizens of Ukraine”, – Serhiy Kvit commented.
“The Ukrainian state guarantees the right to education for every citizen. We are ready to provide the students’ transfer into other Ukrainian educational facilities on the same form of study and specialty they are obtaining now”, added Lilia Grynevych, Member of Parliament of Ukraine, Chairwoman of the Committee on Education and Science of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. “However, our principal task is to maintain our educational institutions on the territory of the Crimea during occupation period”.
Lilia Grynevych told that the government would try to provide Crimean school graduates with the possibility to pass the External Independent Knowledge Evaluation (an obligatory school graduation exam on a specific discipline) on the territory of Crimea, however, some alternatives are being considered, such as possibility to pass the knowledge evaluation in the nearby regions or simplification of admission conditions for the Crimean applicants.
Moreover, despite the difficult situation in Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers continue work on reforming the education and science system of Ukraine. “As of today there is the consensus in Ukraine between legislative and executive powers, allowing to hold the necessary reforms to de-monopolize education and science of Ukraine”, Lilia Grynevych said.
Thus, next week the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine would be consider the Law “On Higher Education” creating opportunities for the autonomy of Ukrainian higher school. According to Ms. Grynevych, the new law is aimed to ensure higher degree of academic freedom for lecturers, independent external evaluation of the higher education quality, contribute to human resources autonomy of higher education institutions, simplify the procedure for education and academic degree documents nostrification (recognition) abroad.
Moreover, another two draft laws are under development – law on the education and law on research and development activities in Ukraine.
The new legislative framework must enhance the competitive capacity of Ukrainian education system, integrate it into the general European and international academic environment, increase competition between the educational institutions instead of protectionism prevailing in this field until lately.
