Legal nonsense in action: how the Ministry of Education and Science rewrites legislation and destroys schools with its distance learning orders

The Ministry of Education and Science is again interfering in the system that should be protected. And this time, not with a reform, but with their decisions, which contradict the current legislation. Under the guise of adapting to wartime conditions, the Ministry of Education and Culture approved orders No. 1112 and No. 1115, which change the rules of distance education in Ukraine. Instead of supporting children who live in constant danger, abroad or in occupied territories, instead of preserving schools that maintain the connection between teacher and student in critical conditions, the ministry created a legal mechanism of destruction. A system that relied on flexibility now faces a regulatory reality where formality is more important than access and departmental order is stronger than law.

New remote rules of the Ministry of Education and Culture

From September 1, 2025, new rules for distance learning, seemingly adapted to the conditions of war, will officially enter into force in Ukrainian schools.  They were approved by the Ministry of Education and Science, responding to the situation in which the entire country found itself, when home, school and childhood for many are scattered in different corners of the world. The idea of ​​changes is not at all to make education accessible to every child, regardless of where he is — in Kyiv, in a front-line village, in a temporarily occupied territory, or somewhere in Berlin or Warsaw. According to the new orders, it is not necessary to have a full school and all classes to create a distance class. For example, if there are students from the 5th, 6th, 8th grades, but there is no seventh grade, then this is no longer a problem. Such classes can work separately, remotely, and they do not need to “tighten up” the missing links, because the structure itself becomes more flexible.

Another innovation concerns the minimum number of students in a remote class. Ideally, there should be at least 20 of them, but in the conditions of war and the real geography of Ukraine, there are exceptions: in small villages or in the occupied territories, classes can be created with even 10–15 students. That is, now you won’t have to wait until “a group is selected”.

The approach to the program is also changing. Previously, distance schools often worked separately. Now all children in the same class will study the same program, which greatly simplifies coordination and avoids confusion when one fifth-grader learns one thing, another – completely different, and they have to know the same thing on the test.

There are also several options for children living abroad. If there is a desire and opportunity, they can continue full distance learning according to the Ukrainian program. However, if the family has already adapted to the new country, and the child goes to a local school, then he can still stay in touch with Ukraine: through a separate Ukrainian studies component, which consists of 5-8 hours a week, so as not to lose contact with the homeland.

Special attention will be paid to children who remained in the temporarily occupied territories. Individual training is provided for them, the so-called pedagogical patronage. This is a special format, when the teacher accompanies the child personally and helps not only in mastering the educational material, but also provides support in daily experiences. After all, it is not always possible to log into Zoom or send tasks on time.

Officials also emphasized that if there is no shelter in the school where the child goes, then he can stay in distance learning without having to transfer to another institution. In the past, this was often a stumbling block, because, they say, there is no bomb shelter, so look for another school. Now the child stays in his school, with the same teachers, just learns online. And with all these changes, the Ministry of Education and Culture emphasizes the priority of full-time education. Where safety allows, where there is shelter and more peace, children have the opportunity to learn live, because communication, a living word, a team of classmates nearby can give more than just knowledge from a textbook.

With the beginning of the 2025/2026 academic year, new regulations will come into force that apply to schools that cannot continue their work due to the lack of adequate conditions. If an educational institution is unable to function, its activities may be stopped, and students may be transferred to other schools. Employees in this case may be dismissed or offered employment in other educational institutions.

Why orders of the Ministry of Education and Culture No. 1112 and No. 1115 are not a reform, but a blow to Ukrainian education

Orders No. 1112 and No. 1115 of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine were supposed to be a response to the challenges of war, providing safe, flexible, organized distance learning for children who were forced to change their place of residence or remained in temporarily occupied territories. But instead of support and adaptation, educators saw in them a centralized, rigid mechanism that ignores the realities of school life, devalues ​​distance education and endangers the existence of schools in the frontline regions. And these are not emotions, but the consequences, which are already causing mass concern among principals, teachers, parents and local communities.

The main essence of the orders is to enroll children not at the place of registration, but where they are physically located. The logic looks formally simple: if the child has left, he is transferred to the school at the new place of residence. If the school where she studied before is not open, then it must be officially closed. And this means that teachers will be cut, and the subsidy for education will move to another area.

In practice, we observe how officials cynically turn children into a resource for funding. Under such conditions, educators from the frontline and border areas, who held on with their last strength, often without shelter, and with unstable Internet, but with almost a personal connection with students, are now left without any chance to save their schools. Even those who have organized effective distance learning and maintained the loyalty of parents, according to the new rules, cannot officially “keep” students, because the order of the Ministry of Education and Culture requires that the child study where he currently lives, and not where he wants.

Formally, everything looks correct, but the wording about the “place of actual stay” hides the fact that teachers are simply denied the right to continue working, and communities – to maintain their own schools. Rural schools, schools in high-risk areas, small institutions are automatically threatened with closure. And what officials so optimistically call optimization is, in fact, nothing more than ordinary liquidation.

The decision of the Ministry of Education and Culture also contradicts the provisions of the legislation on education, which states that access to knowledge must be ensured regardless of the place of residence. The Ministry de facto takes away from local self-government bodies the right to independently determine the organizational model of education. This creates a legal conflict, since the law “On Local Self-Government” does not provide for the direct subordination of communities to the decisions of the Ministry in terms of the structure of the educational network.

In addition, according to the innovation from the Ministry of Education and Culture, at least twenty students are needed to form one remote class. Until now, the state regulatory framework allowed distance learning to be organized with a minimum of five people. The new requirement is difficult to implement, and in a number of cases technically impossible, especially in rural communities, frontline areas and for students who are in temporarily occupied territories or abroad.

The crux of the problem is that most distance schools established in the early years of full-scale war provided instruction to small groups of students, often from different areas. For example, seven children from the temporarily occupied Kherson Region, five from the territories near the front line, and a few more from abroad could study on the basis of one school. Under the new restrictions, such mixed groups will not be able to function, and students will be unable to study in their Ukrainian institutions.

Therefore, order No. 1112 directly threatens the preservation of the existing remote infrastructure. If the minimum capacity is left at the level of 20 people, dozens of schools will be forced to cease operations. For example, 15 schools will be under threat in the Valkiv community in the Kharkiv region. The situation is especially difficult in mountainous areas, villages with a population of up to 300 people, as well as in communities where the number of internally displaced persons is constantly changing.

In addition to the threat to students themselves, the problem also affects teachers. According to trade union organizations, more than 2,300 teachers involved in distance education may lose their jobs. Some of them are already working as migrants, having no other alternative for employment in education. If remote schools are canceled, they will be left without employment, and children will be without the professional teachers they are used to.

Another painful point concerns the situation of children who study abroad, but continue distance learning in Ukrainian schools. For many families, it was a way to maintain a connection with their homeland, with their native language, and with the Ukrainian educational system. But now, when the whole structure is subject to the strict principle of “education at the place of residence”, thousands of such students may find themselves outside the system. They are offered a Ukrainian studies component. And this is only a few hours a week along with studying in foreign educational institutions, which creates an additional burden on children who are already under constant stress. Full-fledged education, which was provided by teachers from Ukraine, is no longer provided for Ukrainian schoolchildren who have found themselves abroad.

A separate problem for parents will be the denial of the right to independently choose an educational institution for their child. Even if they want to leave their child in a Ukrainian distance school, the law no longer allows it. The transfer is automatic. And if the parents did not have time to submit an application, their child may even be transferred to another institution without their consent, by decision of the military administration.

This directly contradicts Article 53 of the Constitution of Ukraine on the right of every child to education,  Laws of Ukraine “On Education” and “About complete general secondary education”, endangers the existence of small schools in frontline, rural and remote communities, eliminates access to distance education for thousands of children abroad, in temporarily occupied territories (TOT), in dangerous regions. That is why orders No. 1112 and No. 1115 are already called unconstitutional, as the Trade Union of Education Workers, People’s Deputies, and education activists publicly declare.

The biggest problem with orders lies in their logic. They formalize the process and ignore the content, not recognizing distance learning as a full-fledged form that can and should be developed in the existing conditions. For officials, this is only a temporary alternative that should be minimized and quickly “translated” into something else. This means that all the experience of teachers, who in recent years have created effective remote classes, built a relationship with children, and managed to preserve Ukrainian education in extreme conditions, is simply devalued.

It should be noted that eight months after the signing of the order, the situation was finally resolved in the Verkhovna Rada. The Minister of Education and Science, Oksen Lisovoy, was summoned for a report, and he promised “finalize the document”. I got the impression that the minister slept through the process of preparing and signing the order all this time, like a sleeping beauty, and only now woke up. Finally, the deputies demand a specific step, namely the cancellation of the registration of the order in the Ministry of Justice. On behalf of thousands of parents, students and teachers, deputies led by People’s Deputy Pavlo Sushko turned to to the Prime Minister of Ukraine with a demand to cancel the scandalous order of the Ministry of Education and Culture under number 1112, which caused real concern and criticism in the educational community. But instead of hearing the voice of society and admitting mistakes, the MES simply published changes to this order without canceling it.

The closer to September, the greater the uncertainty for schools, teachers and students and their parents. Some are not sure if their school will continue to operate. Others worry about whether they will be able to keep their jobs. And for many, the main question remains whether their child will have the opportunity to learn the Ukrainian language, even while being far from home.

So, instead of offering a shoulder to the Ukrainians, the Ministry of Education and Science once again gave them a foothold and exceeded the limits of its own competence. The Constitution of Ukraine guarantees everyone the right to accessible and free education. This right cannot be made dependent on technical or demographic circumstances, especially in wartime, when a large number of children do not have the opportunity to attend formal schools. The decision of the Ministry of Education and Culture in its current form has no legal basis and contradicts the laws of Ukraine. In the legal system, this is direct nonsense: a by-law issued by an executive body cannot change the rule of law or limit the rights of citizens. Attempting to maintain centralized control by reducing access to education lacks legal legitimacy and creates grounds for massive litigation and appeals at all levels of public authority. In addition, the actions of the MES undermine trust in the education management system, provoke conflicts between the ministry, local self-government and society. As a result, children and all participants in the educational process suffer again.