SUMMIT IN MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF UKRAINE

On December 4^th 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.