The Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Oksen Lisovyi recently announced the approval by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Conceptual Framework for Reforming Historical Education in the General Secondary Education System. In the comments to this post, Ukrainians called Lisovyi the worst minister, an enemy of Ukraine and “worse than Tabachnyk,” reports
The Ministry of Education and Science, together with leading historians of Ukraine, has developed and approved the Conceptual Framework for Reforming Historical Education in the General Secondary Education System.
“The document is a framework, it identifies ways to further reform historical education and does not amend existing orders of the Ministry of Education and Science, model curricula, textbooks, etc. In the future, we will develop a roadmap for reforming historical education and involve the expert community at all further stages of implementing changes, and teachers will receive methodological support,” the minister wrote.
He stated that “reforming history education is necessary for the following reasons:
- To form a general education Ukraine-centred history course from the perspective of the challenges of our time
- To abandon the uncoordinated presentation of history, when students study related topics in different subjects
- Eliminate duplication, overloading and fragmentation of expected learning outcomes.
- To form in students the idea of the world as a whole, where all elements are interconnected.
But the official’s post and arguments did not find support among the followers of his page, which is followed by many educators.
The followers of Lisovyi’s post were harshly critical of him and the Ministry of Education and Science as a whole.
“Oksen Lisovyi, how are you different from Tabachnyk? Only your beard. You have done more damage in your short term in office than all the ministers together. Shame on you!” Oksana Kuzmina said in her commentary.
“During the Soviet era, there was no geography of Ukraine or history of Ukraine. Somewhere there was a brief mention of something and then we moved on. That’s why there was no knowledge. Well, dear gentlemen, I congratulate you on your return to the dark ages. Children can’t even name the regional centre of Mykolaiv or Rivne regions anymore. First the covid, then the war, and now the ‘super’ initiatives from Mr Lisovyi. It’s all sad,” commented Facebook user Natalia Orikhovska.
“The Ministry of Education and Science together with leading historians. – Name at least one of these historians. Or do you always have two “own” witnesses on call like the garbage men,” Ivan Nosenko wrote.
The commentators noted that Lisovoy is engaged in substitution of concepts.
“A very nice wrapper, but in reality, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine plans to destroy the subject of Ukrainian history in the school curriculum by combining it with world history. This will reduce the priority of a very important subject in school education, especially now. For example, on average, schoolchildren have 4-5 hours of mathematics per week, 3 hours of physics in high school, and 4-5 hours of English. And only a miserable 2 hours of Ukrainian history, Ukrainian literature and language. Who and why is trying to destroy subjects that are extremely important in every successful state?” Halyna Lazuta wrote.
“Tabachnyk is resting. You have gone too far. How disgusting,” said Ivanka Bila, a contributor to the article.
Negative comments under the minister’s post were overwhelmingly negative.
The Minister of Education preferred not to answer the questions, which were clarified, about the outrage of educators and Ukrainians.
It is worth noting that the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine may soon get a new head. From the publication’s own sources
As a reminder, in 2023, a scandal erupted in Ukraine around Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi over his refusal to take the Ukrainian language exam. The minister refused to take the Ukrainian language exam, which is mandatory for civil servants, causing a significant public outcry and indignation.
The official explained his refusal by stating that he considered his knowledge of the Ukrainian language sufficient to perform his duties as minister and that he saw no need to take the exam. Oksen Lisovyi also stated that he was ready to prove his knowledge of the Ukrainian language in any other way, if necessary.
In 2023, Oksen Lisovyi renounced his PhD degree.
Presumably, the reason for the rejection of the degree was the failure to maintain academic integrity in the dissertation. Earlier, the Facebook page of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement published an analysis of the abstract of Lisovyi’s dissertation “Socio-Cultural Self-Identification of the Individual”, published in 2012. The text contains unreferenced borrowings with signs of copying certain phrases from the abstract of another dissertation (Arabchuk Y.I. “The main factors of socialisation of a personality in a multicultural environment”, 2011).
It should be noted that the Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi issued a special order depriving full-time postgraduate students of the right to study on a contract basis. What the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada says about this and how the educational community reacts to the innovations introduced in the midst of the admission campaign, was found out by 