You're reading: Parliamentary committee fears over 30,000 teachers will be cut after implementation of 2013 action plan

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Science and Education Lilia Hrynevych (Batkivschyna faction) has said that the implementation of the president's national action plan for 2013 in the field of education can leave more than 30,000 teachers unemployed.

“The national plan for 2013 forms educational policy, but at the same time it offers extremely controversial and sometimes bad positions,” she said at a round table “The Action Plan for Higher Education: Forecasts and Risks” on Tuesday.

“The provisions contained in the national plan make it a plan for reducing government guarantees for Ukrainian citizens in the field of education,” she said.

At the same time, Hrynevych said that the plan contains positions that can be accepted, those that can be accepted with some reservations, but it also includes absolutely unacceptable proposals.

She said that the committee fully supports the provision of the plan concerning the financial independence of higher educational institutions.

At the same time, the committee treats with caution the provision of the plan that deals with the transfer to the management of the Education Ministry of higher educational establishments that are now managed by sectoral ministries.

Hrynevych said that if this provision is realized, then, for example, medical university students would face problems with access to the clinical database, whereas the cost of education in such a university will grow.

“The provision that is opposed by the committee, trade unions and, as far as I know, the ministry, concerns an ‘increase in the level of burden on teachers – up to 18 students per teacher,'” she said, noting that such standards are not applied in the EU and that the index of the number of students per teacher varies in different schools in different occupations.

Hrynevych said that this standard is currently defined by the Cabinet of Ministers and ranges between 3.5 and 13.5 students per teacher, depending on directions and specialization.

“In accordance with these regulations, 84,000 scientific and teaching employees are fully employed at state-owned universities in 2013. If this figure is raised to 18, then approximately 32,000 teachers will be made redundant,” she said.