Mykola Tomenko: It is the President, not Individual Ministers or Deputies that shall initiate Education and Health Care Reforms
At the briefing in the Parliament, Mykola Tomenko, Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, emphasized that it is the President, not individual ministers or deputies that shall initiate education and health care reforms.
Firstly, Mykola Tomenko focused on the bills on higher education. He reminded that two alternative bills on higher education had been registered in the Parliament (authored by People´s Deputies of Ukraine Yu. Miroshnychenko (Reg. No.7486), and O. Yefremov and O. Zarubinskyi (Reg. No. 7486-1). The Deputy Chairman also announced that the aforementioned bills would be repeatedly scrutinized by the subject Committee on February 16. "It would be fair if all the bills on the reforms announced by the President and the Government were submitted by the President and the Government, otherwise the situation is strange: we do not know whether the positions of the President and the Government coincide", he explained.
Discussing the problematic issues in the bills, Mykola Tomenko stated, "Discussion is deliberately held in a different manner, attention being diverted to the necessity of reducing the number of education establishment." "However, the Minister of Education is reducing the governmental order by 42% without any laws", M. Tomenko admitted. "I wonder whether the President and the Cabinet of Ministers share this initiative of the Minister", he added, explaining that such an initiative will deprive the children from poor and incomplete families or rural areas of the chance to enter the higher education establishments. "Thus, governmental order is the priority issue", M. Tomenko believes. Secondly, the Deputy Chairman mentioned the fees and their increase. He also enumerated a number of remarks to the bill, namely, an attempt to qualify higher education establishments according to the number of students, not the quality of education.
Furthermore, Mykola Tomenko considers the situation in the health care sector inadmissible. He appealed to the Prime Minister and the Chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Public Health with a request to report on the documents supporting closure of health care establishments in different regions of Ukraine. Mykola Tomenko suggested that the Chairman of the subject Committee should invite the Minister of Public Health to the parliamentary meeting to explain the situation and clarify the governmental stand on this matter.