On 18–19 June, Lviv hosted Ukraine’s largest educational festival “Teachers of the Future”. The event brought together over 2,500 educators and speakers from different countries, with more than 200 events centred on the main theme: “The Art of Shaping the Future”.

The Swiss-Ukrainian DECIDE Project joined the festival as a partner and shared its achievements in the development of specialised senior secondary schools and the career guidance system for children and adolescents.

On the first day of the festival, Valentyna Poltorak, DECIDE Project Manager, joined a panel discussion on how Ukrainian education is changing in the context of the war and what role international partners play in its recovery and development. Together with Nadiia Kuzmychova, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, and representatives from UNICEF Ukraine, UNESCO, the World Bank Ukraine and the Learning Together programme, she discussed key challenges, priorities in education policy, and opportunities for international support of the education system.

During the discussion, Valentyna Poltorak presented the opportunities that the Swiss-Ukrainian DECIDE Project offers to communities in Ukraine, including expert support in establishing a network of academic lyceums, implementing the reform of vocational education, creating a career guidance system for children and adolescents, and providing professional development for education managers.

Currently, more than 600 communities have already received advisory support on establishing a network of academic lyceums, and more than 400 communities are participating in the project to implement a national career guidance system in Ukraine, which DECIDE is implementing in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Communities from all 24 regions of Ukraine have joined efforts to develop a career guidance system for children and adolescents in cooperation with the business sector.

One of the topics that dominated many discussions at the festival was the specialised senior secondary school. How can communities prepare for the reform? How can equal access to specialised education be ensured for all schoolchildren, regardless of where they live? And is it necessary to implement this during the war? Discussing these very questions was the focus of the panel on the three-year specialised senior secondary school.

Vasyl Bilohura, Head of the Education Department at the Chernihiv City Council, joined the expert discussion and shared the experience of the DECIDE partner community and his vision for preparing for the upcoming changes.

Career guidance and counselling were equally important topics at the festival. Today, more and more communities are seeking answers to the question of how to help teenagers better understand their interests, strengths, and the opportunities offered by the modern labour market.

This was the topic addressed during the panel discussion by Nadiia Balabust, DECIDE National Expert, who presented the results of the national pilot project on the system of vocational guidance for children and adolescents.

To date, this work in partner communities has involved more than 400 career coordinators, nearly 60,000 children and adolescents, and 2,300 career counsellors who help schoolchildren explore the world of professions and plan their own educational and career paths.

A practical follow-up to this discussion was a workshop dedicated to the JOBS course for eighth- and ninth-grade students. Svitlana Mykhaliuk, Career Coordinator in Brovarska community, and Nataliia Burdiuh, DECIDE Project Expert, shared tools that already help teenagers to better understand themselves and take their first steps towards making a conscious choice about their future profession.

The festival participants also visited the DECIDE career guidance hub, created at the Interregional Higher Vocational College of Automotive Transport and Construction. There, they had the opportunity to see how modern approaches to career guidance work in practice and help young people discover the world of professions.