On 11-13 June 2025, the 4th Annual Forum on History Education of the Council of Europe entitled “Where Students Meet History: Reaffirming the Role of History Education in the 21st Century” was held at European Youth Center of Budapest (Hungary). A representative of National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”, Eurodoc External Communications Coordinator, PhD in Philology, Associate Professor, Associate Professor of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation Anna Pavelieva was invited to participate in the forum as a member of the Eurodoc delegation and joined the panel discussions, interdisciplinary discussions and thematic groups.
The event brought together leading scholars, teachers, students, educational policy makers, and civil society activists from across Europe to answer the question: how can teaching history properly as part of the study of various subjects contribute to the development of democratic values, critical thinking, and resistance to disinformation in the modern world?
Particular attention was paid to the spaces in which people encounter history – from school textbooks to digital platforms, from museum exhibitions to the streets of cities named after historical figures. In this context, the philological perspective has become extremely valuable: language, narratives, discourse, and symbols are key mechanisms for shaping historical memory. It is philologists who are able to identify, analyze, and comprehend how interpretations of the past change depending on context, culture, and ideology.
A separate discussion was focused on the impact of digital technologies on historical education, in particular the problems of factual distortions, language manipulation, and the spread of simplified or ideologized historical narratives in the media space. The experience of philologists who study the semantics of text, the rhetoric of public statements, and the discourse of memory was highly appreciated in the interdisciplinary discussions.
The forum was the final event of the current Council of Europe intergovernmental program on historical education and at the same time a launching pad for the formation of a new program to be launched in 2026. The participation of the University's representative in this event is a recognition of the important role of humanities, philology and intercultural dialogue in rethinking history as a tool for preserving peace, human rights and democratic society.
Recently, Kseniia Verhal took part in an event on academic mobility in STEM fields of higher education; a PhD student of Poltava Polytechnic won the second place at a prestigious international competition in Vienna, a delegation of Polytechnic teachers took part in the Erasmus+ academic mobility program at the Romanian partner university Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad, Associate Professor of Poltava Polytechnic Iryna Chernetska took part in the prestigious IVLP exchange program, students of Polytechnic shared their impressions of the Erasmus+ internship at ISCAP (Portugal), and the delegation of Polytechnic took part in the academic mobility under the Erasmus+ program within the ISCAP International Week, which was held at Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto (ISCAP).
It should be noted that Poltava Polytechnic lecturers can participate in academic mobility programmes and internships, and students of Poltava Polytechnic have the opportunity to study abroad under the grant programmes of credit academic mobility for a semester or a whole academic year at the leading universities of Austria, Greenland, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, and the Czech Republic.
For more information on current internship, teaching and academic mobility programmes abroad, please contact the International Relations Department (room 213-C, interoffice@nupp.edu.ua) or the Coordinator of International Cooperation of National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” – Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation Anna Kostiantynivna Pavelieva (email: kunsite.zi@gmail.com, phone: +3-8-(095)-91-08-192).
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