While the main sessions of the ZNO-2025 exams began on May 20, a bill appeared in parliament that could change the very meaning of this test. A group of MPs from the Servant of the People party led by Yulia Gryshyna registered bill No. 15254-1: it reduces the number of mandatory subjects to two — Ukrainian language and history of Ukraine — and moves mathematics to elective subjects.
The initiators' argument: wartime
According to Gryshyna, the decision is driven by the realities of the full-scale war: children take the test amid constant shelling and stress, and reducing pressure on applicants seems like a humane step. The proposed formula is two fixed subjects plus one of the applicant's choice.
What the minister said
"The Ministry of Education and Science is categorically against abolishing mathematics as a mandatory subject on the ZNO. Abolishing mathematics or history is an absurdity that will not lead to any positive changes for us as a country".
Oksen Lisovyi, Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine
Lisovyi emphasized: the ZNO tests not specialized knowledge, but basic competencies — the ability to read, write, and count. Mathematics, in his view, develops logic and analytical thinking, without which modern higher education is virtually impossible.
Why the stakes are higher than they seem
Critics of the bill pointed to a telling precedent: after physics and chemistry became elective subjects, the number of students who actually study them in secondary school dropped sharply. Mathematics in school is our defense industry, — a formulation that emerged in the discussion and which is hard to dismiss in a country at war that needs engineers, programmers, and weapons specialists.
- If mathematics becomes elective, schoolchildren will rationally stop studying it deeply — the experience with physics and chemistry confirms this.
- Technical specialties, IT, and defense industry directly depend on the level of mathematical training of graduates.
- The president of the Kyiv Aviation Institute Ksenia Semenova and education experts pointed out the systemic risk for personnel training.
The fundamental collision here is not between an "easy" and "hard" test. It is between short-term stress reduction for applicants and long-term degradation of the technical base of a country that needs to rebuild and maintain a modern army.
The further fate of the bill depends on a vote in the relevant committee and the position of the parliamentary majority — the same one whose MPs submitted it. If the Servant of the People votes for its own bill contrary to the position of its own education minister — this will no longer be a discussion about mathematics, but a question of who actually determines education policy in Ukraine.
