Ukraine will receive €1.2 million from the Government of the Czech Republic for the modernization of the educational system. The relevant Memorandum between the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the Czech Development Agency was signed by Minister of Education and Science Lilia Hrynevych and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Czech Republic to Ukraine Mr. Radek Matula.

The funds will be allocated in equal shares  - €400 thousand within 3 years (2019-2021) and will be targeted to 3 main areas, namely, technical support to the Ukrainian authorities in the reform of the educational system, interuniversity cooperation, assistance to educational institutions with internally displaced students and teachers.

Within the first area it is planned to provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Education and Science and other institutions - the Institute of Educational Analysis, the State Service of Quality of Education, the Institute for the Modernization of the Content of Education. As a result, the relevant specialists should have knowledge that will help implement educational reforms, in particular, taking into account the best practices of the EU.

The second area  envisages  inter-university cooperation between the Czech and Ukrainian universities. First of all, regional higher educational establishments and institutions directly affected by the conflict in the East of Ukraine and occupation of Crimea will be engaged in it. Due to this, Ukrainian higher educational institutions should create and / or improve their internal quality assurance systems in accordance with the  Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG).

The assistance to the third area is designed to improve the quality of educational services in displaced higher institutions and to include internally displaced persons in the educational process. To this end material, technical and expert support will be provided. In particular, the focus will be on the development of the necessary infrastructure.

Part of these components will encapsulate continuation of the assistance provided by the Czech Government to Ukraine in 2015-2018. Its total budget amounted to €1.5 million. The cooperation was aimed at enhancing institutional capacity in education and providing technical assistance to displaced educational institutions and educational infrastructure.

"We are very grateful to our Czech partners for the support provided to Ukraine. All these areas - the internal systems of quality assurance in higher education, assistance to displaced higher institutions, their teachers and students is extremely important. We hope that the new phase will be as fruitful and effective as the previous one. Within this framework, we were able to implement 8 projects, which, for example, displaced facilities received new equipment, renovated premises. Equally important were the projects of cooperation between regional universities to improve their managerial capacity, international mobility and academic independence", the Minister of Education and Science stressed.

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Czech Republic to Ukraine emphasized that in 2019 Ukraine became an integral part of the overall Czech development cooperation as a country of special interest.