STRATEGY AND TACTICS ADOPTED BY THE INDEPENDENT UKRAINE’S GOVERNMENTAL POLICY IN GENERAL SECONDARY EDUCATION

Abstract

This paper will substantiate the author’s version of the historical and genetic analysis of the governmental policy that independent Ukraine has applied in the field of general secondary education. The main methodology tool, employed by the author, was the historiographical analysis of selected documentary, archival, scientific, and sociological sources, traced on the basis of historical-genetic approach in combination with such methods as systemic analysis, which enabled the authors to provide a holistic study of the educational policy, and comparative approach, which is the basis for interpreting changes in educational policy. The article critically reviews the development of the state educational policy on reforming school education through the activities of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine within the timeframe of the initial fifteen years of Ukraine’s independence. The objectives of the study are to substantiate the most prominent strategies and tactical steps, as well as programmers for their implementation in high school practice based on a discursive analysis of an array of documentary and scientific sources. Th author proposes and substantiates the notion of «a tendency in the State’s educational policy», explains the demarcation between the offered term and the concepts of «a direction of educational policy»; at the same time, the concept of «educational policy of the state» is specified. The author proves that changes in strategic goals in education are a consequence of changes in the political course of the country. Therefore, on gaining sovereignty, the first key strategy of Ukrainian education was aimed at building national statehood; consequently, the development of school education, as well as the educational sector in general, was directed towards nation-building priority. Finally, the study discusses the process of building and adopting the following strategy for the development of Ukrainian education, including school education, at the turn of the century, that is, the European integration policy direction of the country’s development on the whole and its education sector in particular