Serhiy Kivalov, Party of the Regions MP and author of one of three draft laws on higher education has asserted that the compulsory nature of the system of Independent external assessment [ZNO] restricts people trying to get into university

If the decision is passed, from November to March after 22.00 and from April to October from 23.00, minors will not be allowed out on the streets and in any public places without their parents or those substituting them with the parents’ consent

Current draft laws on higher education all want to reduce one of the few real achievements of the pre-2010 government – the system of Independent external assessment [ZNO] aimed at ensuring equal access to higher education and fighting corruption

In at least one Ukrainian home for children with serious medical problems children have to be bound to their beds; some have not been outside for years and there can be as few as one carer to 14 children. This is the situation in Ladyzhyn in the Vinnytsa oblast

Over 80 thousand Ukrainian families are on police lists over ill-treatment of children. The victims of such treatment can bear terrible psychological scars, psychologists warn, while human rights activists point to a lack of systematic policy in this sphere.

In Donetsk members of an initiative group of parents whose children are studying in the only 10th grade class with Ukrainian language tuition at the Harmony classical school (gymnaziya) are concerned that the class may be closed

This year the Ukrainian Educational Quality Assessment Centre has received 9,783 complaints from school leavers unhappy with the results of the Independent External Assessment (ZNO]

As was the case for the last academic year, the Masters Journalism course at the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” [NaUKMA] has not been allocated any State-funded places for 2012/2013.

The government has once again postponed agreeing the draft law on higher education and tabling it in parliament. Some civic activists complain that the bill is being drawn up without transparency.

The Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeal has upheld the 30 January ruling revoking the decision of the City Council to close Ukrainian language School No. 111.

A Memorandum was signed on Monday of Cooperation in introducing a Code on Protection of Children from Ill-treatment on the Internet. The first signatories were the companies MTC-Ukraine; Kyivstar and Ukrtelecom.

The Voroshylovsky Court in Donetsk has accepted as unlawful and revoked the decision of the City Council to close the Ukrainian language School No. 111. The City Council is refusing to comment but says it is planning to appeal the ruling.

Its aim is to promote the observance of children’s rights, monitor infringements of their rights and promote implementation of Recommendations given by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

In response to the President’s recent upbeat assurances about human rights in general, and the rights of the child in particular, Yulia Krasilnykova reports on the experience of an organization working directly to protect human rights.

The government’s draft bill on higher education has aroused a new wave of protest from students whose criticisms include popuist moves up till the elections, followed by measures which will cut out student grants for many, as wells moves fostering corruption

An ever increasing number of Ukrainian regions are considering whether to impose restrictions on the movement of teenagers in the late evening and night hours. Human rights activists are critical of such methods for “fighting” juvenile crime

The new history textbook for the 11th grade is 100-pages shorter than its predecessor, but it contains a biography of Viktor Yanukovych. The Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk had demanded that the textbook be rewritten.

On 31 August in the evening, the parents who are standing firm received visits by officers of the district police and Service for Juvenile Affairs handing out explanations on how to teach and bring up school children

The authorities have not come up with any comprehensible explanation for the closure of 4 Ukrainian schools in the Donetsk region so parents initiative group on 1 September will be appealing against the decisions in court

In the new history textbook, the term “Great Patriotic War” for the Soviet War against Nazi Germany has been returned. The term Orange Revolution has disappeared, and information about the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Resistance Army (UPA) has been reduced