Vasyl G. Kremen Minister of Education and Science In December 1999, Dr. Vasil G. Kremen was appointed as Minister of Education and Science of the Ukraine. From 1994 to 1998, he served as Chief of Administration on Internal Policy and Deputy Head of the President Administration in the Ukraine. Minister Kremen brings to his Ministry a wealth of research experience in the domains of politics and the humanities, and has held the position of Deputy Director for the Russia Academy of Sciences and for the National Institute of Strategic Research. Dr. Kremen was born in the Ukrainian village of Lubitove in 1947, and earned his doctoral degree in philosophy from Taras Shevchenko State University in Kiev in 1971.

Reforming of General Secondary Education in Ukraine

The efforts of independent Ukraine to integrate into the European and world educational area make it necessary to reform substance of education, specifically, general secondary education. One of the main targets of the reform is to contribute to equal access of every person to high-quality secondary education.

Ukrainian Government has adopted the State Standard for primary, basic, and general secondary education that will give a possibility to form contemporary requirements to educational level of students and graduates on every learning stage, to renovate a sense of education taking into consideration personal and social needs, the world and native experience achievements, to realize a scheduled transition to new 12-year secondary school structure which began at September 1, 2001.

Up to now, Basic and Model Curriculums elaborated and adopted (27 variants altogether), specifically, for primary, basic and senior schools, for schools with learning in Ukrainian, and in national minorities’ languages, for specialized schools, gymnasiums, lyceums, and others. The invariant Core of the Model Curriculums for basic schools makes it possible to realize school learning at the State Standard level.

The Model Curriculum for a higher school provides realization of school learning according to profile chosen by a student. For every profile (social-humanitarian, philological, nature-mathematical, technological, arts-aesthetics, and sports) it is possible to learn subjects chosen at one of three levels: Standard Level, Academic Level, Profile Level.

To stimulate students’ learning activity, 12-grade evaluation system was elaborated through 2000-2001 years, and new criteria of learning quality evaluation are to be implemented. At 2004, the transition is to be completed to new Primary School Curriculum in the context of 12 years-long secondary school learning.

The next stage of school learning substance renovation will be preparation, using a competitive principle, of new curriculums and textbooks for 5 – 12 forms.