• Українська
  • Русский
  • English
Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Children of Independent Ukraine Enter First Grade

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

The easiest way to define the current situation in Ukraine is to use words like "financial crisis," "everything is bad," "worse comes to worst," etc. But the situation in education is not simple. What will first graders and their parents face in the next few years?

First of all they are finding out that they have to pay for education. This will not change — if you want your child to grow up as a person, you will have to invest much time and efforts in him. If you do not want or cannot afford to pay for their education, try to educate your children yourself or find another way to secure their education. Those parents who think about their children's future and not about the current financial complications will definitely find a way to do so. And, perhaps, this is the main thing seven years of independence has taught our citizens, who happen to also be parents.

Incidentally, western economic estimates show that education is a highly profitable sector. The profit does not come immediately, it takes decades to attract it. Because of the crisis, state officials have completely lost the ability to think strategically and approach education merely as another threat to the state budget. I hope parents are brighter than state officials.

The catastrophic fall of the teacher's prestige is the most tragic consequence of the education crisis. Schools employ either natural born teachers or those who have nowhere else to go. In the pedagogical institutes there is a growing number of lecturers, who started their teaching career because they had no other opportunity.

What kind of society can the country build, where the teachers' labor is devaluated in terms of his spiritual influence on future generations? What kind of citizen will this teacher rear?

Thus far we have no grounds to say the first graders will be proud of their country. As young as Ukrainian independence, these children cannot make their own political or economic choices. Grownups are doing it for them.

Photo by Viktor Marushchenko,The Day

 

Rubric: