The new State standard of primary general education is currently being agreed upon by the Cabinet of Ministers and should be approved in the near future - from September 1, 2018, all children entering the first grade will study according to it. Piloting of the standard is already taking place in 100 schools. This was stated by the Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, Liliya Hrynevych, during the international seminar "New Ukrainian School - New Approaches to Learning and Teaching", which is being held today, October 24, 2017.
"Creating a new standard of primary education was a difficult step that required rethinking and applying new approaches. We had to break out of the Procrustean bed of knowledge only. And I think we succeeded. In the future, there may still be comments on the standard, because we all grow and change, but the document that exists today is truly innovative and inspiring," the minister said.
At the same time, she reminded that the new content of education is only one part of the New Ukrainian School. Equally important are teacher training and a new educational environment.
"All the teachers who work in the experiment well understand that work using the methods of activity-based and problem-based learning is much more intense. And these methods can be implemented only when you have the appropriate conditions for such training. Therefore, we have a very large-scale task - to spread the new experience from September 1 of the next school year for 22 thousand teachers who will take the 1st grade, and for 22 thousand classrooms where children will study," Liliya Hrynevych noted.
Deputy Minister Pavlo Khobzei added that now the participants of the NUS pilot program receive new study materials every week for every next week, and this causes some inconvenience, in particular, in terms of work planning. However, the Ministry of Education and Culture is already finalizing work on educational programs for primary school branches - in the coming days they should be posted for public discussion.
Pavlo Khobzei also announced the launch of a distance learning course at the beginning of 2018, which will be one of the stages of teacher retraining for the launch of the New Ukrainian School in the 2018-2019 academic year. Teachers currently piloting the standard will also be able to use its materials.
The international seminar "New Ukrainian school - new approaches to learning and teaching" is held for heads, deputy heads and teachers of 100 schools that are currently piloting NUS, as well as project coordinators for these schools. During the day, they will share their own experiences, in particular, regarding the testing of new teaching methods. Following the results of the seminar, the first stage of monitoring the implementation of the project of the new standard will take place.
