2017 is the year of implementation of the sectoral decentralisation. A new quality of services should appear in the community, and the educational service is one of the most important and the first of them. The Ministry of Regional Development and the Ministry of Education started the preparation and implementation of a joint project for the development of a new educational environment in 200 Ukrainian schools. That matter was discussed during the joint telephone conference of Vice-Prime Minister - Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Utilities of Ukraine Hennadii Zubko and Minister of Education of Ukraine Lilia Hrynevych with heads of Oblast State Administrations.

"Our objective is to develop a full-scale comfortable educational environment. Comfortable in all respects - in terms of equipment and technical support for schools and content of the educational process. For this purpose, the Oblast Administrations and heads of communities should be proactive", Hennadii Zubko emphasised.

There are several sources of financing the project: resources of the State Fund for Regional Development, the government grant for the formation of infrastructure of the amalgamated territorial communities, the government grant from the state budget for social and economic development of certain territories, the educational government grant, local budgets, and funds of the international technical assistance.

"The formation of educational environment in the amalgamated communities is the most promising and beneficial. It will allow optimising the surrounding infrastructure to the maximum extent possible and investing the funds efficiently, at the initial stage. Under the same conditions, when selecting a school to be participating in the project, an educational institution situated in the amalgamated community will have advantage. In fact, our objective is to develop the educational environment precisely in pivotal schools of the amalgamated territorial communities. As of today, there are 178 pivotal schools and 511 branches thereof operating in Oblasts (Regions). 39 of them are in the amalgamated territorial communities", the Vice-Prime Minister noted.

In 50 of 200 schools where the new educational environment will be developed this year, the Ministry of Education will also launch new pilot educational programmes and materials for the first grade of the New Ukrainian School.

"The pilot schools and first grade teachers working there will become pathfinders. They will test the new standard, programmes and educational materials of the primary school which will be used in the educational process. On the basis of their comments, amendments to pilot materials will be made, whereupon such materials will be introduced all over Ukraine in 2018 when the first grade pupils will go to the New Ukrainian School", Lilia Hrynevych explained.

She added that there were introduced certain requirements to the environment to ensure successful implementation of the reform. In particular, the requirements concern the mobile workspaces so that the work in the class can be organised flexibly and so that modern educational methods can be used, the development of a modern multimedia library on the basis of common school libraries, the provision of free access to the internet, and information and communication technologies in the school in general, etc.

"We will not be able to implement this ambitious plan without the help and support on the part of Oblast Administrations and heads of communities. You are responsible for the development of conditions at the local level, you are vested with the functions of administering schools, and we ask you that in the course of this hard transformation period you offer support to schools which will pilot the New Ukrainian School to the maximum extent possible", Lilia Hrynevych addressed the participants of the telephone conference.

The main criteria of selection of educational institutions in the project include the following:

• There should be not less than two schools in each Oblast. In each of the regions, at least one rural and one city school shall be selected. It may be a pivotal school or a school which is considered as a pivotal one. The institution should not be subject to optimisation or reorganisation and it should be able to take schoolchildren from other areas.  
• The building of the general educational institution should not be in state of failure. The land plot underlying the general educational institution should have enough space for arranging functional zones: leisure, educational, research, sporting, etc.
• Participation of local budgets in the project co-funding.

You can find recommendations regarding the development of the "New Educational Environment" HERE