Experts suggest starting them in school

The school should rear the future citizens of United Europe. This was the unanimous opinion of the participants of the round table, Introducing a Special Course on the Basics of the European Integration in Ukraine’s Secondary Education Institutions: Attainments, Problems, and Prospects. Its organizers were, among others, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on European Integration, European and Comparative Law Center, and the British Council in Ukraine. Among the participants of the discussion were head of the parliamentary European Integration Committee People’s Deputy Borys Tarasiuk, Deputy Minster for Education and Science Viktor Ohneviuk, along with directors of a number of schools and lyceums from various Ukraine’s regions. The organizers presented to the participants a draft special school course, Ukraine’s European Choice. In the opinion of Hennady Druzenko, representative of the European and Comparative Law Center, which is preparing a textbook, Ukraine’s European choice has already affected the issues regarding our citizens’ awareness of the European Union’s history and present and also their understanding of their European identity. The proposed special course designed for high school pupils (and, incidentally, already tested at Kyiv School No. 18) is to answer precisely these questions. It is a quite profound course in terms of its content, envisaging studying topics like the “Amsterdam Treaty,” “The European Auditors Chamber,” and “Copenhagen criteria,” which might seem complicated even to some university graduates. However, the pupils’ feedback to the new course, which was read out at the round table, is quite positive. Many speak about the new subject affectionately, confessing that after class they “educate” their parents and neighbors. Mr. Druzenko called upon viewing the draft textbook primarily as an impetus for more intensive work in this direction and preparing similar textbooks. Deputy Minister Ohnevyuk agreed that the time has come for Ukrainian children to recognize themselves as Europeans. However, he had some warnings concerning the ways and means of doing this. In his view, a textbook alone, even the best one, is unable to solve this problem. To draw the educational process closer to the requirements posed by the country’s European choice, complex changes are needed in both the subjects’ contents and the way of organizing the learning process, he believes. Certainly, this course has a right to exist. However, the knowledge our children need as future fully fledged Europeans contains in various courses, Mr. Ohneviuk said, adding that reforms conducted at school today are to a large extent aimed at bringing the Ukrainian education system closer to European standards. Judging by the lively discussion, most of the present heads of educational institutions agreed to the need for a complex approach. The existing school schedule is overburdened with numerous subjects, and implementing one more would simply cause problems, they stated. However, we need to start bringing school education closer to European standards through new teaching methods and renewing the contents of the subjects without wasting time, said the tutors of our future voters and taxpayers.