Basic military training is to be made optional for students: MES prepares new law

The Ministry of Education and Science believes that the basic military training course, which is to be taught at universities from 1 September, should not be mandatory for all students. Deputy Minister of Education Mykhailo Vynnytskyi said that the current approach creates corruption risks and the threat of mass sabotage.

This is stated in an article by ZN.UA «Compulsory military training for students: is Ukraine ready for it?».

According to him, forcing 120,000 second-year students to take the currently envisaged course of the BMTC is not an option.

«What will we do with this reality, when a large number of people (I'm talking about thousands) want to pay off the BMTC: «I don't want to — I can't for various reasons, but come on, dear Mr Instructor, sign me up, and here's 100 bucks». And this will be a nationwide problem,» said Mykhailo Vynnytskyi.

The deputy minister added that the state is creating a corruption trap.

Vynnytskyi said that a draft law has already been registered that cancels basic general military training for students as a mandatory part of the educational process and instead provides for a course «Fundamentals of National Resistance». He did not elaborate on the details of the new draft law, but indicated that there is no doubt that the duration of the theoretical part of the new course will not change.

«However, everything else should change significantly and will be changed in the near future,» the deputy minister said.

MP Inna Sovsun notes that the state should also pay attention to communication with society regarding the introduction of the course on SHW for students.

«Communication is especially needed when we tell students: «Now you have to prepare to become a marksman, but we will change the law someday, maybe before the first of September, maybe after, and you have to figure it out somehow, hold on, we will come up with something later. This does not work when it comes to hundreds of thousands of people,» says Inna Sovsun.

Onyshchenko writes that it is not yet known why the new draft law announced by Vynnytskyi was adopted, and in the midst of preparations for the implementation of the previous law on the BMTC, and whether changes will be made by 1 September.

Earlier, it was reported that basic military training would become mandatory for all university students in Ukraine. Those who fail the exam will not be able to continue their studies.