School without peace and quality: MES launches a new reform – now with a profession, but without understanding reality (video)
The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine never stops surprising society with its experiments on schools. While the children of the war study under fire, in evacuation or without a stable Internet, the Ministry of Education and Culture once again changes the direction of educational policy – not to improve the quality of knowledge, but for the sake of another “structural transformation”. This time, the officials decided to integrate the acquisition of a profession into the high school: from 2027, the graduate must receive not only a certificate, but also a labor specialty.
This was reported by Iryna Shumyk, head of the professional education department of the Ministry of Education and Culture. She stated that the new model provides for the combination of general education disciplines with professional training. In practice, this will mean that in high school, students will not just study subjects, but at the same time master one of the specialties in demand on the labor market.
“This is a unique opportunity to finish school and acquire a profession. We are always criticized for boring physics or mathematics. Now we are working on new programs, where the professional component will be integrated with the general educational ones.” — said the representative of the ministry.
However, officials do not talk about the quality and depth of these updated programs. The approach assumes that instead of serious study of basic subjects, schoolchildren will receive a set of fragmented knowledge, to which they will add a superficial course in some profession. In conditions when students in the frontline regions study without light, sitting in shelters, or through mobile communication under sirens, the state also forces them to “orientate themselves in the labor market.”
Pilot programs are planned to start in 2027. Students of grades 10-11 will fall under the reform, and later, probably, ninth graders as well. The professional component involves the cooperation of schools with vocational and technical institutions: in theory, students will be able to visit laboratories, workshops, and learn a profession with the help of specialists. But whether rural schools, schools in the front-line zone or in communities with a minimal budget will be able to implement this idea is a rhetorical question.
The development of programs is currently underway. The MES emphasizes that there will be no need to submit an application: each student will automatically receive such a “double package” – school subjects plus one of the professions. But they do not explain to society what profession, according to what criteria, whether the student will have a choice and who will be responsible for the quality of training.
This initiative is included in the general vector of education reform without taking into account either the real state of schools or the psychological state of children who live in a state of chronic anxiety, lose their parents, housing and future. In the conditions of war, they are offered not care and protection, but another bureaucratic innovation, which at best will not work, and at worst – will deepen inequality and chaos in the Ukrainian school.
