Restoration of infrastructure of educational institutions was discussed at the expanded governmental meeting on decentralisation and regional development.

Author: Dmytro Synyak

“This year, unprecedented investments– UAH over 3.5 billion – will be made in education in general, and school in particular,” began her speech Minister of Education Liliya Hrynevych at the expanded governmental meeting in Vinnytsia, devoted to decentralisation and regional development (her speech opened the panel "Decentralisation in the educational sector, implementation of the New Ukrainian School project and development of vocational education"). “At the same time, UAH 1.3 billion will be directed at improving teachers’ qualifications. Plus UAH 0.5 billion of the sum that remained from the last year's school subvention. If you add subventions for inclusive education, for classrooms in the schools for national minorities, for development of electronic textbooks, purchase of CD-ROMs, creation of innovation and training classes, then the sum amounts to over UAH 3.5 million!

Liliya Hrynevych emphasised that creation of conditions for children’s education is the main power of local authorities, "but the state will support them on this path."

Yulia Svitlychna, head of the Kharkiv Oblast State Administration, informed about resuscitation of physical educational infrastructure. According to her, within three years the volume of education funding from local budgets has increased threefold – from UAH 2 to 6 billion. 37 kindergartens were opened and welcomed 5 thousand children.

Halyna Yakubovych, deputy mayor of Vinnytsia, was also reporting mostly about "the money, construction and repairs".

Speaking at the economic bloc of the governmental meeting, William Tompson, Senior Counsellor and Deputy Head of the Regional Development Policy Division of the OECD, stressed that investments into physical infrastructure do not affect the growth of regions. Real changes can only be achieved through investing in innovation, human capital, business support, etc. Only then will we get a cumulative effect.”

The material was created with the support of the Swiss-Ukrainian project "Decentralisation Support in Ukraine" DESPRO

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