FUNCTIONS OF THE EDUCATION OMBUDSMAN IN UKRAINE: LEGALLY PRESCRIBED DEFINITION AND PRACTICAL REALISATION

Abstract

The article examines the functions of the Education Ombudsman in Ukraine. It is noted that for a long period, the development of institutions responsible for ensuring and protecting citizens’ educational rights in Ukraine was mainly limited to regulatory provisions and the activities of general education management bodies. However, as socio-political processes developed, the role of civic initiatives increased, and the need to improve mechanisms for responding to violations of educational rights became more pressing, the creation of new human rights protection tools was required. One such tool was the introduction of the position of the Education Ombudsman in Ukraine. According to the Regulation on the Education Ombudsman, the Ombudsman is an official authorised by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to perform functions related to the protection of rights in the field of education. It is emphasised that the performance of these functions is impossible without effective forms of activity that ensure real protection of the rights of participants in the educational process and contribute to the improvement of the education system as a whole. Therefore, the Education Ombudsman in Ukraine performs several key functions: human-rights protection, advisory and explanatory, monitoring, and representative. The article highlights that the human-rights protection function ensures responses to individual complaints and the restoration of violated educational rights; the advisory and explanatory function promotes citizens’ legal awareness in the field of education; the monitoring function identifies systemic violations and provides a basis for changes in legal regulation; the representative function ensures cooperation with state and non-state institutions. It is stressed that each function plays an independent yet interconnected role within the overall mechanism for ensuring the right to education. The article concludes that the functions of the Education Ombudsman form the functional core of his or her activity and directly ensure the implementation of tasks related to protecting the rights of participants in the educational process. Attention is drawn to the unresolved issue of risks associated with the Ombudsman’s administrative dependence, particularly due to subordination to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. In this context, it is advisable to strengthen the institutional autonomy of this position through regulatory means.