SUMMIT IN MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
AND SCIENCE OF UKRAINE
On
December 4th the summit “Problems of modern historical education contest
and ways of its solution” has been held in Ministry of Education and Science of
Ukraine. The summit has been conducted by the Minister of Education and Science
of Ukraine I. Vakarchuk. Presidium of the summit was represented by
academician I. Yuhnovskiy, director of the Institute of National Memory,
and P. Polianskiy, the deputy Minister.
The summit participants have professionally and openly
discussed the problems of history education content that is defined by state
standards of history education, by educational curriculum and by modern history
text-books.
Ivan Vakarchuk pointed out the exclusive role of
history among other educational sciences.
Academician Igor Yuhnovskiy reported about the role of
historical memory in strengthening of Ukrainian identity especially in youth, Iryna
Kostiuk, the member of “Nova Doba” All-Ukrainian Association of history and
social sciences teachers, told about the Holocaust Museum in Washington (USA)
and Yad Vashem experience in Holocaust study as an example of national
historical memory preservation.
Almost all speakers emphasized the necessity to
comprehend the history of Ukraine as poly-ethnic history that is approaching
today to formation of Ukrainian political nation.
Dr. Igor Shchupak, Tkuma Center director, the
author of history text-books, dwelt on necessity of using in modern Ukrainian
poly-cultural society the European experience in poly-ethnic history
teaching.
Established on the summit the Work Group of Ministry
of Education and Science of Ukraine, the member of which has become Igor
Shchupak, has to generalize numerous suggestions as for improvement of state
standards, History curriculums and text-books in Ukraine. One can hope that its
activity will favor strengthening of historical memory in Ukrainian society.
This experience is valuable for educational activity of Tkuma All-Ukrainian
Center for Holocaust Studies and other Jewish cultural educational
organizations.
