Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk appealed to the headmasters of Kyiv schools, who had become the winners in the open competitions, to take an active part in drafting an education bill and to put forward their proposals. The Head of Government urged at a meeting with the principals of these schools on Friday, October 2.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk reminded that higher education had experienced a lot of changes, whereas secondary education needed retrofitting.

According to the Head of the Government, the difference between a Ukrainian and western system of secondary education is that an emphasis in our national system is made on teaching: "While in the foreign educational system it is essential to think. And unless we switch to this function, we won’t be able to achieve real progress. Our children should be taught to think".

Arseniy Yatsenyuk stressed that the law on education should envisage an additional autonomy for the principal of a secondary school. According to him, it primarily concerns an administrative and organizational autonomy “in the process of taking decisions concerning who works and how".

Moreover, according to him, it is vital to introduce a contract for the educational staff: "Any teacher or headmaster who signed the contract must understand what goals he has to achieve".

"The contract and the new law should provide incentives to encourage one-upmanship for teachers. The system of incentive is simple and clear - the better implementation criteria you demonstrate, the more money you earn", he stressed.

During the meeting they also discussed increasing hours for learning English in schools’ curriculum. Arseniy Yatsenyuk called that a serious geopolitical decision, noting that we ought to appeal to the Governments of the U.S. and the UK with a request to facilitate the development of a broad programme of English language training.

He also highlighted the need to introduce psychological work with pupils of educational institutions: "These children are actually the war generation. Every day they turn on the TV and see the hostilities. It is crucial already today to talk to children and design a program to avoid a negative influence of this injury on their lives in the future".

The meeting was held in specialized school №148 named after Ivan Bahriany with an in-depth studying of Ukrainian language and literature, in which Serhii Gorbachev had been appointed the headmaster, as he had been chosen among the winners of the selection competitions in Kyiv.

The Prime Minister spoke with pupils and took part in a lesson on media literacy.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk laid flowers at the memorial plaque to Yevhen Zelensky, a former student of the school, who had died during an antiterrorist operation.