Development of Citizenship Competencies in Ukraine (DOCCU)

DOCCU NGO (‘Development of Citizenship Competencies in Ukraine’) is a non-profit civil society organisation established in 2016. DOCCU works to support education and decentralisation reforms, including the decentralisation of education governance, digitalisation and de-bureaucratization of education governance, strategic planning at all levels, promotion of evidence based, transparent and democratic decision-making in education at the local level, empowerment of citizens, including schoolchildren and youth through education, providing access to safe and quality education, and other.

Since 2020, DOCCU implements the ‘Decentralisation for Improved Democratic Education’ (DECIDE) project in a consortium with PHZH Zurich with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The project promotes decentralisation and education reforms under the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Sciences and the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development. DECIDE is a leading project in sectoral decentralization focused on strategic planning at all levels of government.

Within DECIDE: VET direction, the project provides support to the Law “On Vocational Education,” to developing new VET institutions financing models, creating a CRM, and to transfer of VET institutions from state to municipal ownership.

DECIDE supports the Government in implementing the Upper-secondary School Reform through the national piloting of cooperation model between regions, communities, VET institutions, secondary schools and businesses to establish a career guidance system for schoolchildren. In 2024-2025, DECIDE piloted a career-guidance system in 6 regions, 9 communities, 22 schools, and 10 VET institutions, reaching 14,500 students and 100 businesses. As part of the pilot, career guidance hubs operate in 10 VET schools as a crucial element of a career guidance system. DECIDE support in strategic planning, institutional development and capacity building enabled VET institutions to establish cooperation with businesses, training and events to develop career guidance system.

Since 2025, the project has been implementing a national government pilot to scale up its career guidance system approach. Between 2025 and 2027, the initiative will engage over 100,000 schoolchildren, 392 communities, 24 regional state administrations, 740 schools and over 3,000 businesses. The program includes expert support, training of career coordinators, guidance tours, internships to enterprises, joint career guidance events and grants to 50 communities to establish modern career guidance hubs.

At the same time, DECIDE in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Science, Cult Food, and the Project Office for School Nutrition Reform builds capacities to strengthen the School Nutrition Reform. It strengthened the capacities of over 50 master trainers for VET master teachers across all regions, who, in turn, trained over 811 school chefs trainers.