Town Hall Meeting “School Education: Budget and Parents’ Funds”

A town hall meeting on “School Education: Budget and Parents’ Funds” was held in Kharkiv on July 20th.

The event was organized on the initiative of MP Olena Sotnyk by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives in cooperation with the Interns’ League within the Model District project under the aegis of USAID RADA Program: Responsible Accountable Democratic Assembly implemented by the East Europe Foundation.

Oleksandr Zaslavskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, familiarized the participants with the methodology of the event and told about the tangible results of the previous Town Hall Meetings within the Model District project.

The author of the scenarios, Iryna Kohut, expert at the CEDOS Center, told the audience that the public education subvention is currently one of the “cheapest” public subventions. Recently, there has been a change in attitude towards parents’ contributions throughout Ukraine – from legalization and “unshadowing” of the funds offered by parents to educational institutions monthly to their full ban. The expert stressed the importance of an active public stance as regards settling the issue of parental contributions:

“In order to get the maximum effect from state funding, the topic of today’s discussion should be in the focus of the Kharkiv community.”

The discussion was held at ten desks and involved more than a hundred representatives of the Kharkiv community: teachers, parents, activists, and representatives of local authorities. The participants considered the pros and cons of each of the 5 alternative solutions to the problem of school budgets and legalization of parental contributions.

Eventually, 27 participants (majority of those who took part in the voting) chose the option of imposing a total ban on parental contributions. One of the alternatives was not supported by anyone at all, and only 7 people chose the option “do not change anything”.

At the end of the event, all interested persons had an opportunity to express their ideas concerning the format and content of the event, to briefly comment on it, and ask questions.

Olena Sotnyk is convinced that a complete ban on parental contributions is too radical a decision. The MP expected some more willingness in terms of personal initiative and responsibility. Therefore, based on the results of the discussion, the best proposals and ideas will be collected to be used for amendments to the law On Education.

Materials of the Town Hall Meeting:
Description of the problem
Option 1. Arrangement and collection of parental contribution should be left to the discretion of school administrations and parents (status quo)
Option 2. Creation of a charitable foundation
Option 3. School administration opens an account at a state bank (or treasury) and independently manages its own school fund
Option 4: Local authorities make it obligatory to transfer all parental contributions to special accounts in the State Treasury
Option 5. Completely ban parental contributions at schools

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