Minister Tabachnyk Held a MoESYS Meeting

Monday, 26 December 2011

On December 23, 2011 Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk chaired a meeting of the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports.

Members of the board, National People's Deputies, and representatives of the nation's executive branch participated in the meeting.

Ravil Safiullin, Chairman of the State Department of Youth and Sports of Ukraine reported on the progress of implementing the changes proposed by the Public Humanitarian Council led by President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych dated September 30, 2010.  These proposals involved developing physical education, group sports, and improving the health of various segments of the Ukrainian population through physical activity and organized sports.

Mr. Safiullin singled out the main tasks: "First, we must prepare for EURO-2012, prepare our delegation for the XXX Summer Olympics in London, and for the Para-Olympics, prepare to host the World Fencing Championship, the world Rhythmic Gymnastics, the International Wrestling and Gymnastics Tournaments, the European Cup Ski races, and more than 10 worldwide and European tournaments in non-Olympic sports and nationwide Ukrainian events"

According to Mr. Safiullin, "this number of sporting and other healthy events is a practical step to promoting a healthy lifestyle among the citizens of our nation."  He also announced the State Program for developing physical education for 2007-2011 and praised the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers concept of creating a similar program for 2012-2016.

The issue of developing pre-school education was also discussed at the meeting.  This time they specifically talked about pre-schools in the L'viv Region and in the Darnyts'ya district of Kyiv.

Pre-schools are being opened by evicting current tenants out of former pre-school sites, opening new, suitable facilities, creating educational complexes (school-daycares), and building new facilities.  Ms. Tamara Panasyuk, Chairman of the Department of after school education at the MoESYS noted that the number of pre-schools in the L'viv region is growing rapidly.  In 2010 35 pre-schools were opened, whereas in 2011 59 opened.

Construction on only 2 new pre-school buildings started in 2011; one in L'viv (a private pre-school) and the other in the village of Zymna Voda, located in the Pustomyty District of the L'viv region.

In the Darnyts'ya district of Kyiv, 2 pre-schools located in newly built facilities warmly welcomed students.

At the meeting it was stressed that it is imperative to evict tenants from former pre-schools and utilize the facilities for the purpose they were designed for-that is, for preschools.  All children should have equal access to quality pre-school education.

Svyatoslav Serebryans'kyy, Associate Director of the Institute of Innovative Technologies and Education Content reported on several issues including: the results of testing and monitoring textbooks for general secondary schools conducted during the 2009-10-2010/11 academic years; the fact that the state quotas for publishing textbooks in 2011 was reached; that the nationwide textbook manuscript competition for grades 1-4 was completed; and that the list of government ordered textbooks for 2012 has been finalized.

Iryna Zaytseva, Director of the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Assessment reported on the results of regionally piloted scholastic aptitude tests (SATs).   According to her, 7228 students from 40 establishments of higher education participated in testing.  The tests were piloted in five regional centers for educational quality assessment: Donetsk, Kyiv, L'viv, Simferopol, and Kharkiv.  Currently completing the third stage of the experiment (2012) is proving to be very difficult.  Certain rules for holding EIT-2012, particularly the deadlines, don't allow SATs to be piloted on a nationwide level in 2012.

Press-Service of the MoESYS