The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine will continue to cooperate with international organizations within the framework of the implementation of the New Ukrainian School. The results of cooperation and further plans were discussed on September 17, 2019, during a meeting of the Minister of Education and Science, Hanna Novosad, with representatives of the British Council, the Goethe Institute, the Embassy of France in Ukraine, and Sambridge University Press.
"I want to thank you for the strong support you have given to school reform over the past two years. It is very important for the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine to have partnership relations with international organizations open to cooperation," Hanna Novosad stressed.
In the first years of implementation of NUS, international organizations participated in the development of the program for improving the qualifications of teachers of foreign languages. As a result, 268 trainers received special training - 190 change agents and 25 methodologists in English, 36 multipliers in German, 17 tutors in French. Thanks to their work, 17,000 English, 1,177 German, and about 500 French teachers received retraining.
A platform was also created to support teachers NUS-English.com.ua. 230 English language teachers in pilot schools were given the opportunity to take the online course "Teaching Primary Learners Communicatively" and materials from Cambridge University Press and MM Publication for free.
Hanna Novosad emphasized that the implementation of the New Ukrainian School continues, therefore it is time to concentrate on further steps. In particular, the development of teachers of 3-4 grades of NUS, as well as preparation for the next stage of the reform, are currently relevant.
"We are currently working at the elementary school level. And in two years we will get closer to basic secondary education - it is worth thinking about it now. We are also thinking about how to speed up the school reform," Hanna Novosad said.
For their part, representatives of international organizations declared readiness for further cooperation. In the near future, there are plans to expand the toolkit that will contribute to the development of Ukrainian teachers, as well as conduct research that will help determine the level of knowledge of foreign languages among schoolchildren. In addition, the meeting participants agreed to work out a detailed plan of further actions with each partner organization.