Transformations in Public Education in the Ukrainian State in 1918. Part 2

Abstract

This paper continues the authors’ analysis of the policy pursued by the government of the Ukrainian State in the area of public education in 1918. The primary focus in the work’s second part is on the government’s policy on preschool, primary, and secondary education. The key sources employed in the work are materials from the period’s periodical press, memoirs by contemporaries of the events, and published statutory enactments of the government of the Ukrainian State regulating policy on primary and secondary education. It is in the year 1918 that the primary, secondary, and higher education systems in the Ukrainian State were formalized legally. The government was deeply aware of the decisive role of the public education system in the development and strengthening of Ukrainian statehood. The authors drew the conclusion that primary and secondary schools in the region enjoyed a high level of autonomy in terms of organization of the educational process at the time. The exception was that government policy actively facilitated the Ukrainization of the educational process – by way of introduction of instruction in the Ukrainian language and disciplines related to Ukrainian studies. This was a positive influence amid the formation of a young Ukrainian state. Despite a challenging military/political and economic situation, the government did manage to provide most of the region’s educational facilities with all appropriate course materials. The government worked closely with local authorities and the public, which had a positive effect on the development of the systems of primary, secondary, and preschool education locally.