The new school year has made parents question how ready schools are for the educational process. Transparency International Ukraine presents the projects What Your School Buys, which will help parents find out more about procurement in their children’s schools.
Every year, parents buy school supplies, which are a mandatory component of high-quality education. This year has been more challenging than ever, with parents having to also buy masks, gloves and other protective equipment for COVID-19. But how ready are the schools themselves for safe education during the pandemic?
The best way to ensure that the children are getting everything they need is to control the schools themselves and the education authorities. That’s why Transparency International Ukraine has created the special project What Your School Buys.
In this project, TI Ukraine has developed an online map with schools and kindergartens of 24 Ukrainian oblast capitals. On the map, you can find almost all educational establishments in those cities. For residents of other cities, TI Ukraine experts have prepared some guidelines. They include advice on preparing information requests on procurement to the local education authorities and guidelines how to find your school on the DOZORRO monitoring portal.
The experts focused especially on the rules for formalizing charitable contributions to schools. Voluntary contributions are just one of schools’ sources of revenue, and their use requires special control.
“Financial issues in schools are often resolved through the so-called charitable contributions, and this practice is often perceived as mass and mandatory,” says TI Ukraine’s Director of Innovation Projects Ivan Lakhtionov. “Every year, the budget allocates more and more money to education, which means school procurement. So today we need to make sure that these problems really cannot be solved without parents getting involved. And our online map and useful guidelines can help with this.”
Everyone can leave feedback on the online map on the project website. If certain information is not accurate, you can leave feedback on the DOZORRO portal. If violations are identified, DOZORRO community representatives will send this data to supervisory and law enforcement agencies.
Financial issues in schools are often resolved through the so-called charitable contributions, and this practice is often perceived as mass and mandatory. Every year, the budget allocates more and more money to education, which means school procurement. So today we need to make sure that these problems really cannot be solved without parents getting involved. And our online map and useful guidelines can help with this.
Director of Innovation Projects Ivan Lakhtionov
