Reform of specialized secondary education: preparation for piloting
As early as 2025, a three-year specialised secondary education reform pilot programme will be launched.
This process requires careful preparation and planning of support for pilot lyceums.
To address all unresolved matters at the end of February, over forty experts convened for an expert session. These experts included representatives from professional pre-higher education, general secondary education, the Ministry of Education, and non-governmental organisations.
The meeting continued a number of activities of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, which are carried out with the support of the DECIDE Swiss-Ukrainian Project as part of the development of the Strategy for the reform of specialized secondary education and a roadmap for its implementation.
During the session, the experts discussed the following:
practical aspects of the interaction between institutions of specialized secondary, professional pre-higher and higher education at the piloting phase;
mechanisms of enrollment of pilot participants in universities;
opportunities to shorten the terms of study at universities for graduates of pilot institutions; and
features of establishing cooperation between pilot academic lyceums and universities for a smooth transition between levels of education.
«The analytical phase of the Strategy development, where the conditions for implementing the reform were studied and its main directions were determined, is currently being completed. However, there are still a few fundamental questions that still need to be answered. One of these issues is the cooperation of academic lyceums with universities, as well as, in general, coordination between senior specialized and higher education», – mentioned Valentina Poltorak, Project Manager of DECIDE.
In addition, at the event, representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science told about the beginning of work on the selection of 20-25 academic lyceums, which will be the first institutions to pilot the reform.
At now, efforts are being made to draw in foreign partner schools that will offer methodological guidance and assistance to lyceum pilot programmes.
100-150 universities will participate in large-scale piloting in the 2025/26 academic year, with the models and programmes that prove successful serving as the foundation.
