EDUCATION REFORM: LIBERATION FROM “SOVIETNESS” (ARTICLE ONE)

Abstract

Education, science and cultu re have always been at the epicenter of major state policy. And this is understandable. After all, it is they who form the spiritual foundation on which the value palette of a person and society is nu rtu red, the person's worldview is formed, as well as life priorities that accompany a person almost throughout their life. They are still relevant today. And although in recent years the Ukrainian education system has undergone quite serious (significant) transformations, the transition from the former “Soviet education” and the process of creating a new, effective educational model that would meet Eu ropean standards is not yet complete. Education in Ukraine needs radical modernization. Finding ways to implement it remains an urgent and actual task. And this is understandable. After all, Ukrainian education for centuries was in the gri p of the policies of the Russian Tsarist and later Bolshevik statehood, which imposed falsified knowledge and values and effectively destroyed the Ukrainian spirit, mentality, language, and culture. Narratives that have been pejoratively, but surprisingly accurately called “sovietness” have taken hold in them. And although “sovietness” was fostered not only by education but also by the way of life of the people of that time, it was education that was used by the Communist Party authorities to distort Ukrainian spirituality as much as possible. “Sovietness” is so deeply rooted in the character of Ukrainians (as well as other peoples of the former USSR) that even today, despite the condemnation of its narratives by the majority of the civilized world, it does not let go of its embrace about 30 percent of deceived people. Even to this day, some people dream of “retu rning to the times of developed socialism and Gorbachev’s perestroika”, which allegedly provided “free medicine”, “affordable education”, “state-provided housing”, “periodic price reductions”, “cheap essential goods”, and other ideologically inflated, thoroughly falsified priorities of the Soviet way of life. Some older people have apparently forgotten (and newer generations do not know) about half-empty store shelves, huge queues for “shortages”, humiliatingly low salaries, and most importantly, about rampant lawlessness, the “telephone law”, omni potence of the KGB and party nomenclatu re, Stalin's cult of personality, trampling on democracy and freedom, persecution of people for their beliefs, repression of dissenters, fratricidal wars inspired by the Communist Party government. The eradication of “sovietness”, the cleansing of education and spirituality in general from its malignant growths is a task without which the successful revival of national spiritual tablets, the development of the state and society, science, education and cultu re in accordance with world civilizational standards are out of the question.