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THE PROCESS OF TEACHING NATIONAL HISTORY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN UKRAINE: FORMING NEW CONTENT
Authors: Ziakun A. I. PhD in History, Associate Professor, Sumy State University (Ukraine)
Number of views: 274
Every political authority, even a historical one, puts forward its “own” demands on
history and historians. It was, and probably always will be. This was no exception during the
restoration of the Ukrainian state in the 1990s. From ideological monism, Ukrainian science
has shifted to reforming social and humanitarian education in the country, including historical
education. The beginning was in 1988, when the existing Soviet power, realizing that it was
impossible to stop the process of change, brought it under its control, setting up a coordinating
committee to develop a program for the development of historical research, to improve the study
and propaganda of the history of the Ukrainian SSR. The Commission proposed to separate a
course of history of the Ukrainian SSR in secondary and higher education into an independent
educational discipline, to expand the number of schools with advanced study of history, and to
organize training in leading universities of specialists in the history of Ukraine. But to proclaim
does not always mean to do. The cardinal changes will begin later and will be discussed in this
article. Until the 1990s, Ukraine had no national concept of historical education.
Until 1989, the history of the CPSU was the only basic historical discipline in all higher
education institutions of the USSR, as well as in the entire Soviet Union, regardless of profile of
study or region. The main educational programs were approved centrally in Moscow by the
General Directorate Teaching of Social Sciences of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary
Special Education of the USSR. In 1989, the course of the history of the CPSU was withdrawn
from the educational program of higher education institutions and was replaced by the
obligatory historical discipline - “Social and political history of the XX century”. In 1990,
universities were granted more rights in defining the content of training. This facilitated the
deployment of a grassroots initiative to improve the content of historical teaching. The first
such initiative was made by teachers and students of higher educational establishments of Lviv
region, where since 1990 most courses of history of Ukraine were taught in most universities,
although the official status of this course has not been determined yet by the goverment. In
1992, universities of Ukraine are moving to an in-depth study of national history, re-profiling
the departments of USSR history into the departments of Ukrainian history, increasing the
number of hours of studying the history of Ukraine for students of historical specialties. But a
major drawback in teaching the history of Ukraine was the lack of science-based course programs.
In 1993, the Scientific and Methodological Commission on the History of the Ministry of
Education of Ukraine began the development of a typical program for the course of history of
Ukraine as a kind of reference for the departments of history of Ukraine of higher educational
institutions. The development and approval in 1993 of the program of the normative course of
history of Ukraine for students of history faculties of higher educational establishments, as well
as the drawing up in 1994-1996 a typical program of the basic course of history of Ukraine for
other higher educational institutions contributed the development of scientific approaches to
teaching Ukrainian history, and clarification of teachers’ positions on discussion issues in
history. At one time with the development of the educational programs, the national concept of
historical education in Ukraine was created and improved.
Key words: history education, history program, national history, course of the History of Ukraine, higher education institutions.