Creative contest of Ukrainian youth begins

The Friday before last heralded the beginning of The Day of the Ukrainian Written Language, a creative contest of school youth within the network of the International Children’s Ukrainian Language Contest. The contest will have four stages for Ukraine’s residents and three for the Ukrainians abroad who will get their contest tasks through the Internet. The contest was organized by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Ukrainian League of Philanthropists, and Canada’s Petro Jacyk Educational Foundation. Last year the contest involved over 200,000 pupils from 12,000 Ukrainian schools as well as the diaspora. This year the number of participants is estimated in the millions, since now pupils of colleges, technical, and vocational schools have joined in. The winners of the nationwide contest’s stage will be awarded on May 24, 2002 at the Ukrayina Palace in the presence of the state’s highest officials.

Money prizes for the winners are rather big (last year they amounted from four to seven thousand hryvnias). Three winners in the eleventh grade category will obtain the right to enter the philology department of any Ukrainian university without entrance exams. Last year it was mentioned at the awards ceremony that the teachers’ labor will also be rewarded, but this year they have perhaps forgotten to include this clause into the Contest Statute. In general, not only philanthropists but local executive power organs will finance the contest. Unlike last year, jury members will be paid for their work.

In order not to duplicate traditional competitions in the Ukrainian language, the winners will have a chance to continue the contest on the level of district competitions. The tasks of the International Contest are aimed primarily on testing in practice participants’ command of Ukrainian in all spheres of our life; the emphasis will be given to style comprehension, especially oral speech. The subjects for written works are moral and ethical problems. Deep invasion into such issues and a facile pen will be the main criteria in awarding points to the contestants.

The main goal of the contest is to enhance the prestige of the Ukrainian language and confirm among the public the opinion that knowledge is valuable.