No need for plumbers?
Three of the capital’s vocational schools are set for closure while faculty and students protests
On August 12, 2010 students of Kyiv’s three vocational schools, together with parents and faculty members, staged a picket at the gates of the Presidential Administration building. About 50 people gathered there to urge the authorities not to close the Kyiv Higher Vocational School of Construction and Transport, the Kyiv Vocational Lyceum of Construction and Phytodesign, and the Kiev Higher Vocational School # 26. The schools’ shutting down is found in the order # 737 of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine of July 28, 2010, which deals with the “streamlining of the MES-supervised public vocational schools network.” In other words, three schools in the capital should be merged into one, the Kyiv Regional Higher Vocational School. At the same time, the MES’s order left the question of the fate of the schools’ faculty (which is set, in fact, to become unemployed) and students that are studying at them, unanswered. This decision seems odd at a time when the professions, which are taught at these institutions’, are in the greatest demand, and these branches of the economy lack experienced personnel for several years now. These professions include builders, plumbers, turners, mechanics and so on. To correct the situation and encourage students to enter the worker training courses, the Ministry increased the number of government-sponsored places by 20 thousand (in addition to previously existing 180 thousand). And now, it wants to reduce the number of vocational schools.
As explained by the Minister of Education and Science Dmytro Tabachnyk The Day before the protests, this is done in order to improve the quality of workers that graduate from these schools, and to ensure the purposeful spending of public funds. The minister also indicated that the number of students in vocational schools, which are slated for reorganization, did not meet the designed capacity of the institutions. Does it mean that the minister considered the students had too large rooms for learning?
Acting Director of the newly-formed Kyiv Regional Higher Vocational School Valentyn Chahin pointed out that currently, purely organizational work is being carried out: specialists’ suggestions are studied, the number and composition of departments, training courses, and material resources are being reviewed, because out of the three old schools’ buildings the new Vocational School will retain only two. According to him, the third building, which will be vacated, will be given to the MES’s Institute for Innovative Technologies and Education Content. Mr. Chahin also assured that no child shall be forced to drop out, all shall be provided with an opportunity to learn their chosen profession. Additionally, he expressed confidence that all the contentious issues associated with the reorganization of schools will be taken care of by September 1. The minister, on his part, assured that the faculty of the reorganized institutions will be given jobs either in the new school or in other educational institutions.
But knowing how our officials carry out promises, it’s hard to believe them beforehand. It’s also hard to understand how the faculty of three schools can be employed at one or how they can be given jobs in other schools, where teachers are fighting for their lecture hours (because their wages depend on it)?
If the ministry is really concerned with the quality of education (we’d like to remind our readers that Dmytro Tabachnyk, at his meeting with Viktor Yanukovych, called it the priority for his department), it would be better for it to create better conditions for learning at vocational schools by renovating workshops and updating equipment, and to raise the prestige of working trades. Right now there is a good chance to do this — this year’s admission campaign saw demand for vocational education rise by 30 percent.
