Further development of cooperation between the state and the church in the sphere of education was the main topic of discussion. Particularly, church representatives expressed their concern about exclusion of “Ethics” from the invariant part of school curriculum, which shall pose problems for further teaching of subjects of spiritual and moral nature due to low number of instruction hours allocated to the elective courses.
Participants of the meeting addressed the Chairperson of the Committee with a request to help restore teaching of ethics and further teaching of subjects of spiritual and moral direction.
The necessity of recognition of theological education as a higher one was stressed during the meeting. Liliya Hrynevych noted that in purpose of this, legal terrain is under preparation now. According to the Committee Chairperson, the working group actively works in this direction over elaboration of suggestions to the existing laws on freedom of conscience and higher education. “I, as the Chairperson of the Committee on Science and Education, express my readiness to work over such changes, for the theological education to be recognized in Ukraine. Thank you that the Church actively and fruitfully joins this work and I hope that we will have certain results towards autumn,” underlined Liliya Hrynevych.
The issue of elaborating state standards of theological education, necessary for its state recognition, was also discussed. The Chairperson of the Committee believes that such standards should be elaborated by the respective state institutions in close cooperation with religious institutions.