NEWS AND VIEWS: Time to help our Ukrainian schools (07/15/01)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Time to help our Ukrainian schools

by George Gajecky

It is July: time for students to enjoy the summer vacation months. It is also a time for reflection. Has the Ukrainian community done its share to help its schools flourish and educate Ukrainian youths?

It seems that the priorities were skewed along the way. Where will the Ukrainian community be in 10 or 20 years when there will be no educated Ukrainian Americans? Who will lead the numerous financial, educational, cultural and religious organizations? Will we just melt away as many other groups have? Or will we always depend on new arrivals from Ukraine? Why build expensive institutions when there will be no one to use them?

This is a perennial problem. There is too little support for the Ukrainian educational system, whether Saturday schools or day schools. The "Ridna Shkola" system has been producing graduates annually for over 50 years. There are just enough graduates to man leadership positions in the various Ukrainian institutions, but hardly enough to expand or improve those institutions or establish a powerful pool of educated Ukrainian youth.

At present there are 35 schools with 2,600 students and 430 teachers. The Educational Council, the central organ of Ukrainian education in the United States, provides direction, guidance and leadership for these schools. It also publishes the journal Ridna Shkola. For 50 years the Educational Council has published textbooks, workbooks and other educational materials. During this school year four new works have appeared. Textbooks are updated and republished or commissioned as the need arises, if there are funds for publication. And herein lies the rub: new textbooks need to be illustrated with color prints, but these are expensive to produce.

New programs are being implemented, albeit slowly due to financial constraints. After the last general meeting in 2000, the Educational Council acquired its own website. Hopefully, all schools will soon be tied together via the Internet.

Teacher training is an important part of the agenda of the Educational Council. For 16 years, a two-week seminar for teachers has been held at Soyuzivka in the summer to help them develop their knowledge of Ukrainian subjects. Most of those seminars were financed by the Ukrainian National Association, but as of last year other financing has had to be found to continue these valuable lessons. Many new schools employ teachers who participated in these courses, and several principals are alumni. Biennial teachers' conferences are organized by the Educational Council. Teachers from the United States and Canada meet and exchange ideas about teaching, new educational techniques and the status of Ukrainian schools.

The main task of the Educational Council lies in working with Ukrainian teachers, students and schools in the United States and in parts of Canada. But it also helps schools in Ukraine. Thousands of textbooks, educational materials and books of literature were sent to Ukrainian schools in Ukraine. As hundreds of letters attest, this help is invaluable - especially for schools where Russian is still the language of instruction. The council also provides subscriptions to Ukrainian periodicals and newspapers for selected schools in Ukraine, so that children might read current Ukrainian periodicals. There is also demand for the journal Ridna Shkola. Several prominent professors from Ukraine, including Anatolii Pohribnyi, Petro Kononenko and Vasyl Yaremenko, taught at the teachers' seminars, while prominent literary figures like Yevhen Sverstiuk, O. Mohylianka and O. Sazonenko gave lectures.

The work of the Educational Council continues. For it to be more effective, it needs your support. Recently, a fund drive was launched, and nearly a thousand Easter cards soliciting donations were sent to the community. But the results were not encouraging. Unless the Ukrainian community rearranges its priorities and supports the Educational Council and the network of Ukrainian schools it directs, the council will begin to decline. This will have a dire effect on the community.

So please don't delay. Send your contribution directly to: Ukrainian Educational Council - UCCA, P.O. Box 391, Cooper Station, New York, NY 10276-0391.

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