Nikolai Tomenko announced the implementation of the educational doctrine of Koch, Himmler, and Hitler in Ukraine.

I found myself thinking that the constant reformist statements and plans of officials from the Ministry of Education and their agents for grants regarding the radical reduction of schools and universities for Ukrainians bear a striking resemblance to the actions of the Nazis during World War II. It’s worth remembering that in the early months of the war, Ukrainian nationalists hoped that the idea of Reich Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories Alfred Rosenberg about the possibility of creating an independent Ukraine as a traditional enemy of Bolshevik Russia would come to fruition. However, that did not happen as hoped. On May 9, 1942, Erich Koch became the Reich Commissioner and declared a real Nazi EDUCATIONAL POLICY regarding Ukrainians:

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“Ukrainians do not need to think about schools and universities because they are obliged to WORK; education is unnecessary for work. I find the opening of educational institutions entirely impractical because education only harms the native farmer and the native worker.” Another argument for the total liquidation of schools and educational institutions was the plan to reduce the demographic growth of the population.

Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler emphasized in one of the documents regarding education for Slavs:

“For the non-German population in the East, there should be no schools other than the Four-Class Primary School. The primary school should aim to teach students only to count up to 500 and to sign their names; diligence and obedience are God's commandments. I consider the ability to read unnecessary. There should be an annual filtering of children aged 6 to 10 years to select the fit and unfit children.”

This educational policy towards Ukrainians was fully supported by Adolf Hitler.

However, this approach did not apply to all regions of Ukraine. For example, in Zhytomyr, not only four-class primary schools operated under the Nazis, but also incomplete secondary and even secondary schools.

Thus, if we analyze the reformist ideas of the Ministry of Education officials during the war, they closely resemble a liberal version of the Nazi educational doctrine for Ukrainians.

Here, I do not even mention the criminal policies of Muscovite-Russian imperialism, which did not recognize Ukrainians as a people and totally prohibited the use of the Ukrainian language in the educational process.

(According to historians, decisions to ban or restrict the use of Ukrainian in education were made no less than 50 times).

Let’s identify the main educational initiatives of the Ministry of Education during the period of martial law in Ukraine.

1. According to the initiative of the Ministry of Education and the relevant resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, it is planned to CLOSE more than 1,000 Ukrainian gymnasiums and lyceums in 2025-2026. To be precise, this concerns the cessation of funding for educational subsidies starting September 1, 2025, for 473 gymnasiums and 59 lyceums (where fewer than 45 children study), and from September 1, 2026, for another 544 gymnasiums and 122 lyceums (where fewer than 60 children study). In reality, the number will be much larger, as local officials are not waiting for 2025 and are already closing rural schools. For instance, the leaders of the Tetiiv community have already closed 8 schools, including those with more than 50 students.

2. Furthermore, another idea about implementing so-called specialized education in senior classes stipulates the right to open lyceums only if there are at least 50 or even 100 students in one parallel. In practice, in today’s wartime Ukraine, this will mean that COMPLETE SECONDARY EDUCATION can only be obtained in large cities, where it is realistically possible to gather such a number of students in senior classes. As a result, many rural children and their parents will opt to go to Poland for strawberry picking rather than move to urban dormitories for senior class education. The officials of the Ministry of Education, who are already cynically violating Article 4 of the Constitution regarding the unified citizenship in Ukraine, have not heard of Article 53, which mandates MANDATORY, FREE, and ACCESSIBLE complete general secondary education!

This is despite the fact that, according to the European Commission, there are currently over 800,000 schoolchildren and students from Ukraine studying in EU countries.

3. On the privatization of land and facilities of UNNECESSARY universities.

Another reformist idea, already legalized by the Verkhovna Rada, is the lifting of the moratorium on the privatization of facilities and land of higher educational institutions and research institutes. This labor idea began with daily hysteria from officials about how we have too many TEACHERS and LECTURERS and generally people with higher education. This occurs against the backdrop of state policies in developed countries aimed at maximizing the number of people with higher education as an important component of the educational, legal, and political culture of citizens.

4. Appoint rather than elect rectors. This idea from officials directly stems from the previous plan for the possibility of privatizing universities. It is clear that under the conditions of university and student self-governance, secretly privatizing land and facilities of universities is fundamentally impossible. However, an appointed rector by the supervisory board, a so-called manager, will become the rector for corporatization and privatization. I wouldn’t be surprised if universities experimenting with abandoning democratic elections for rectors soon start to “profitably” sell land and property. I advise keeping an eye on, for example, the National University of Physical Education and Sports, which has chosen this experiment and is notably located in the center of Kyiv.

5. Financing PRIVATE universities to optimize/liquidate NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES.

This year, the so-called grant funding system for student education was applied for the first time. The Ministry of Education took about 400 million hryvnias from state orders and directed them towards grants. In practice, this led, as specialists predicted, to funds for training UNPOPULAR professions such as engineers, builders, energy specialists, physicists, chemists, agronomists, teachers… being redirected towards training POPULAR lawyers, internationalists, psychologists, designers, marketers, financiers… Moreover, the lion’s share of this STATE funding went to PRIVATE universities with which the current Ministry of Education leaders collaborate. Such innovations are not even being considered in EU countries, where we seek to enter!

6. On the closure of medical universities.

Another harmful innovation is the necessity to close specialized medical universities. Today there are numerous examples of the competitiveness of Ukrainian doctors in the world and attempts by neighboring states, during the war, to retain them for permanent employment. It is clear that many provincial medical universities will need to be consolidated, but closing ALL of them is absurd. I would like to remind you that we already had one reformer who wanted to liquidate all military hospitals during the war?!

7. On the radical increase in tuition fees at universities.

Higher education only for the wealthy – another trend among officials. As the Russian and Nazi occupiers declared and acted, ordinary Ukrainians do not need education; they work diligently as it is.

The current state policy, under which the salaries and pensions of judges, prosecutors, or officials are rising while the public’s are frozen, hints at who benefits from such an educational initiative.

I have already refrained from mentioning the double standards, where on one hand, there is a process of merging or liquidating STATE UNIVERSITIES, while on the other hand, a PRIVATE university of the notorious KIVALOV receives licenses from the Ministry of Education to open 3 new private universities for training law enforcement officers and lawyers.

And you still continue to support or maintain a neutral position towards such an ANTI-UKRAINIAN and ANTI-EUROPEAN educational policy?!

P.S. In my next publication, I will discuss how "patriotic and euro-optimistic" education ministers banned "HISTORY OF UKRAINE" in universities.