On 17 June 2026, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine hosted a regular meeting of its Public Council for Cooperation with Churches and Religious Organizations. The meeting was chaired by the Head of the Public Council and Head of the Department of Spiritual Education and Theological Scholarship of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Archpriest Oleksandr Trofymliuk.

The meeting was attended by Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Mykola Trofymenko, heads and representatives of the Ministry’s structural divisions, as well as delegated representatives of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Chair of the Public Council presented the agenda to the participants. Fr. Oleksandr expressed his gratitude to Mykola Trofymenko for facilitating the organization of the meeting and expressed his hope for continued fruitful cooperation.

During the meeting, participants considered a number of current issues concerning cooperation between the state, the education sector, and religious organizations. In particular, they discussed opportunities for training specialists at institutions of higher theological education through educational programmes in fields other than Speciality B8 “Theology.”

Special attention was devoted to annual monitoring of the teaching of spiritual and moral subjects during the 2025–2026 academic year, as well as to the initiative of establishing a working group to review and implement the Concept of Spiritual and Patriotic Education within Ukraine’s educational system.

Members of the Public Council also raised the issue of the content of sexuality education programmes in general secondary education institutions. During the discussion, representatives of the Ministry informed participants that, following a thorough review of the curriculum and teaching materials for the subject “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” for grades 1–11, as well as consultations with the programme’s authors from the NGO “Divchata” (“Girls”), who also participated in the meeting, a decision had been made to withdraw the Ministry’s official endorsement of the educational programme. It was further decided to establish a working group tasked with developing an updated programme that would take into account the comments and proposals raised during the consultations.

At the conclusion of the meeting, participants exchanged views on future areas of cooperation between the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Churches, and religious organizations.

It should be recalled that on 29 May 2026, the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations met with Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko of Ukraine. Following that meeting, relevant instructions were issued to the central executive authorities.