EU-Finnish “Learning Together” project and Oleksandr Pedan are launching the YouTube Project “Stories Not from Textbooks” about the value of education

The project “Stories Not from Textbooks” has been launched on YouTube. School principals, teachers, students and their parents show there the New Ukrainian School as a place where values of Ukrainians are formed. It is implemented by the “Learning Together” project co-financed by the EU and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland in collaboration with public activist and TV presenter Oleksandr Pedan. The first video of the project has been released yesterday, on 30 March 2023, on the YouTube channel “Pedan Can” («Педан Може»).

“Thanks to our teachers, managers of educational institutions, administrators in regions, our education has withstood the full-scale invasion. The fight continues, also on the educational front, but today we need to also focus on the development of Ukrainian education. One of the components of this development is a systemic and holistic continuation of the New Ukrainian School reform, which will help educate responsible citizens. I am grateful to our partners – the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, the European Union, the Learning Together project and Oleksandr Pedan for the project “Stories Not from Textbooks”, that will help show the importance of the NUS and changes that this reform brings,” said the Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Oksen Lisovyi.

“Stories Not from Textbooks” demonstrate that the New Ukrainian School is a modern and safe educational space, where despite all of today’s challenges inventors, innovators, conscious citizens, future professionals and free individuals are growing up. The key values here are respect, trust, security, dignity and love for your country.

After all, high-quality and affordable education is one of the powerful components of Ukraine’s fast recovery.

“The European Union supports reforms of the education sector in Ukraine in general, and the implementation of the New Ukrainian School in particular. We are confident that schools lay the foundation for becoming conscious citizens of the country and bearers of democratic values. The New Ukrainian School aims to create such personalities. We are happy to demonstrate first results of the implementation of NUS” emphasized Frederik Coene, Head of Cooperation of the EU Delegation to Ukraine.

The project “Stories Not from Textbooks” focuses on teachers, parents and students who are examples of invincibility and, despite Russia’s full-scale invasion, continue to teach and learn. The project about the values of education “Stories Not from Textbooks” is on air starting from 30 March every Thursday on the YouTube channel “Pedan Can” («Педан може»).

“With our video project, which is a part of the communication campaign “Value of Education”, we want to show not only the results that the NUS reform already brings in practice but also the co-creators of the reform and carriers of the values of modern Ukrainian education -proactive school principals, innovative teachers, creative students as well as their parents who support changes in education. Jointly, all together, we will be able to build a new Ukrainian school as a holistic system,” emphasized Jarkko Lampiselkä, Chief Technical Advisor of the “Learning Together” project.

In particular the protagonists of the project “Stories Not from Textbooks” include:

• Anton Atamanchuk, a primary school teacher of the Kyiv school No. 287, known for his videos in TikTok;
• Oleh Slushnyi, Principal of Vinnytsia Lyceum No. 20;
• Yuliia Balaniuk, a teacher who conducted lessons next to a supermarket during blackouts;
• 8th graders from Bucha Andrii Yatsura and Bohdan Makarenko, who have developed a construction debris management project in their hometown;
• teachers, children and parents from school No. 3 in Chernihiv, where the educational process continued even during the siege.

“Each story, and there are 9 of them, is an example of invincibility. 11-year-old Tymur from the Kherson region now lives with his mother in a shelter in Lviv. He completed the 4th grade online, looking for Internet connection in the occupied city to join lessons in a Ukrainian school. Illia from Kharkiv and Dmytro from Kherson have been studying in Vinnytsia since September where their families have found a shelter. The children make new friends, resume football training and ballroom dancing classes. Artem Zakharov is a teacher from Mariupol. The school where he used to work was bombed to the ground by Russian troops. But the desire to teach could not be taken away. Today Artem teaches math at school No. 252 in Kyiv,” explains Oleksandr Pedan.

Background about the Learning Together Project

“Learning Together” is a collaborative project that started between Ukraine and Finland in July 2018, and was joined by the EU in late 2018. The expected long-term impact of the “Learning Together” project is to enhance the quality of education in Ukraine, enhancing the instruction in Ukrainian as the second language among national minorities as well as the perceptions the Ukrainian citizens have on their education system.

The project is co-financed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and the EU and implemented by FCG Finnish Consulting Group Ltd in cooperation with the University of Helsinki.