North Atlantic Treaty Organization
July 16, 2013
Ukraine modernising its military education
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So far, DEEPs [Defence Education Enhancement Programmes] have been set up with Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Mauritania, the Republic of Moldova, Mongolia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Initially, the Alliance’s education and training programmes focused on increasing interoperability between NATO and partner forces.
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Ukraine is modernising its defence education institutions with the support of NATO in what is the biggest educational programme the Alliance has ever embarked on with a partner country.
No less than five defence education institutions located in Kyiv, Lviv and Kharkiv are set on improving the professional military education they have to offer. They have openly articulated their educational needs and requested support in faculty development, simulations, English language training and curriculum development in a broad range of subjects. These include policy and strategy formulation, aviation law, international humanitarian law, economic security and psychological support for combat.
Cooperation is being led through what is known as NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programmes – or DEEPs. These programmes provide expertise on “what to teach” and “how to teach”. In concrete terms, DEEPs connect senior educators from NATO countries with their counterparts from partner countries with the objective of enhancing educational curricula and learning methods.
Ukraine made the request for NATO support in October 2012, in a letter from Ukraine’s former Minister of Defence, Dmytro Salamatin, to the Deputy Secretary General of NATO, Ambassador Alexander Vershbow. Since then, the needs of the Ukrainian institutions participating in the programme have been identified by a DEEP expert team, which visited Ukraine end March 2013. The conclusions of this visit form the basis of the three-year programme, which started mid-July 2013.
The Ukraine DEEP will be taken forward with the support and cooperation of the National Defence University of Warsaw, Poland, the NATO International Staff and the NATO Liaison Office in Kyiv.
So far, DEEPs have been set up with Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Mauritania, the Republic of Moldova, Mongolia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Initially, the Alliance’s education and training programmes focused on increasing interoperability between NATO and partner forces. They have expanded to provide a means for Allies and partners to collaborate on how to build, develop and reform educational institutions in the security, defence and military domain.
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