Ukrainian media wrote that Ukraine’s Minister of Education, Serhiy Shkarlet, will be dismissed from his office, referring to the information they received from Ukraine’s Cabinet. Shkarlet was among the most criticized minister in the 2020 government appointed by Zelenskyy’s party, given that he was accused of plagiarism while preparing his thesis. Ukrainian students held numerous demonstrations for his resignation before the full-scale war started.
“There are two problematic things with this appointment. The first goal is [to privatize] property available in the Ukrainian education system… As for education itself, here we can speak about banal incompetence. Shkarlet’s values remained in the Soviet period,” Mykhailo Vynnytskyi, Head of the Secretariat of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance, explained in 2020.
The dismissal of Shkarlet has already sparked a wave of celebrations on social networks among Ukrainian students. Meanwhile, the media name three possible candidates to replace Shkarlet.
First is Oksen Lisovy, director of Ukraine’s progressive Minor Academy of Sciences, a research institution for high school pupils. With the beginning of the full-scale war, he volunteered to join the 95th Ukraine’s air assault brigade.
Second is Inna Yashchuk, Head of the Department of Education, Science and Sports of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and Dean of the Faculty of Primary Education and Philology of the Khmelnytskyi Humanitarian and Pedagogical Academy.
Third is Yulia Hryshyna, MP from the “Servant of the People” party, a Ph.D. of legal sciences and a professor. She also heads the subcommittee on higher education of the Committee on Education, Science and Innovation in Ukraine’s Parliament.
