You're reading: Education Ministry’s taste in literature disgusts teachers

There is a battle over literature going on in Ukraine and the plot is almost worth a novel. The central characters are the controversial Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk and a regular teacher from Kyiv who rebelled against him.

Iryna Meged, a teacher of literature at Kyiv’s technical lyceum, was disgusted by the ministry’s recent actions. Hundreds of teachers on April 5 were called in to what was supposed to be a discussion with the ministry on what the literature curriculum should be in schools.

But then it turned out that the teachers were gathered to listen to a 40-minute monologue of a minor ministry official presenting the new course, and then leave the hall.
“That never happened before,” Meged said. She added that the ministry released drafts of their plans months before it was approved for public discussion, and she actively took part in the process.

The plot thickened as the offended teacher found the new school literature course on the web. Shocked by what she found, she decided to write a letter to the minister himself.

“It was supposed to make the course easier, but it is overloaded now,” she said, suggesting that children won’t cope with the volume. “I believe that minister just doesn’t know what this new course is like.”
In the letter signed by Meged and 56 other teachers from Kyiv, Tabachnyk was asked to revise the list of modern literature for studying, as well as the selection of works from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

The teachers felt it was wrong to remove classics like “Faust,” “Little Prince” and “Mowgli” from the literature course for grades five to nine, and replace them with Paulo Coelho’s “Alchemist,” Anna Gavalda’s “95 Pounds of Hope” and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, particularly when the ministry did it single-handedly, with no public debate.

They also felt it was wrong to remove the literature course for higher grades in some schools, when Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Oscar Wilde are usually studied.

The letter received plenty of attention from the media, but none from the addressee. His ministry, however, posted their response on their web page, calling Meged “a hero of an imaginary war.”

At the same time, journalists from Ukrainsky Tyzhden suggested that modern literature was added to the list the ministry would have to pay royalties for the abstracts of these works, which would allow for shadow schemes with budget cash.

Minister Tabachnyk told journalists recently he won’t comment on the new literature course, as it is still incomplete, but said he does not want to see Harry Potter series of books in it.

The teacher keeps campaigning and laying out her arguments against the ministry’s plans to whoever cares to listen.

“The course is not coordinated with Ukrainian literature and world history courses,” she explains. “And most importantly, it doesn’t contribute much to the systemic development of a person. The authors of the course are proud that new program has so many modern authors, but we already study their works as elective class. I’m not sure that Coelho, for instance, needs to be in the program.”

Commentators on the educational website osvita.ua seem to agree. Some of the site’s visitors left comments that teaching Coelho at school “is a crime to the children,” and that the new literature course will help to create a “mentally unstable generation.”

Kateryna Taranik-Tkachuk, a ministry worker who took part in developing the course, said she had no idea why the course caused so much noise, while changes in other courses went almost unnoticed.
Meanwhile, the noise got louder as teachers from Chernihiv and Zhytomyr chimed in and published critiques similar to Meged’s on April 18.

At the same time, Meged’s immediate boss, the school principal, received a phone call from the city’s education department which is directly subordinate to the education ministry.

Meged says it was just a warning that she has to be careful, and that the principal shares her concerns.

“Fortunately, there were no pressure on me yet, I was just asked to act carefully,” says Meged. “But I understand what it is when you are opposing the system, and I know that I’m setting up my school now.”

Meged effort has paid up somewhat. On April 23, the ministry published a new version of their proposed academic plan, with “Little Prince” returned to the recommended reading list, but few other major changes.

The ministry said teachers and public have two weeks to comment on the new plan. It also claimed that the updated version of the plan took into account some 700 suggestions.

Meged says the most significant problem remains as teachers continue to be kept away from the development of the academic plan. She said the ministry claims to have three teachers in a working group of six, but only one of the teachers is well known. It’s unclear how the other two were picked.

Then, the quality of the course plan is still a problem. For example, each year students have to study some 35 major works of world literature.

“[This] is still too much. Twenty would be acceptable,” says Meged.

Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected]