Supporting the reform of the Ukrainian vocational education system in Zhytomyr

Education

Ukraine

8VS1-VM-UA-VOCEDUC25

Timeframe 14.04.2025-30.09.2026 Aktiivne

Target group Ukraina hariduseksperdid

Budget 315 385 EUR

Funders

Eesti Välisministeerium

Partners

The School of the Future program, initiated at Tallinn University in 2017, embodies a unique approach to whole-school improvement. The concept of school improvement addresses the importance of changing school culture, which is achieved through adherence to the characteristics of the change process – dialogue, meaningfulness, ownership. These characteristics represent the three cornerstones of the program as guiding principles that frame the joint improvement process of schools and universities.

The first cornerstone is distributed leadership of collaborative learning among teachers. The second cornerstone focuses on evidence-based decision-making. And the third cornerstone is co-creation to improve student learning (Eisenschmidt, Vanari, Tammets, 2021).

Project objectives

Ukrainian education leaders, teachers and education officials will gain knowledge and practical examples of developments and best practices in the Estonian vocational education system and, based on this, prepare a preliminary strategy for applying this knowledge to improve their own education system.

Actions and results

The program consists of online courses, study visits and on-site workshops in Tallinn and Zhytomyr. The program includes both theoretical knowledge and practical experience of the Estonian education system and an analysis of what is behind Estonia’s PISA success.

The program is based on a three-stage framework:

1. Developing organizational understanding, overview of bottlenecks. Creating an organizational culture that supports change.

2. Current curriculum development, national regulations, what must be followed, how much freedom is there?

3. Curriculum development. Presentation of Estonian scientific literature.