Parents’ views, beliefs, and experiences greatly affect children’s attitudes toward education. The research aimed to identify the parents’ perception in the past, present, and their desired priorities in science education as well as investigated the adolescents’ perceptions based on gender and academic performance on science. As a survey study, this research relied on a questionnaire as the primary method of data collection which the data gained then was analysed by using statistical descriptive (percentage). The results showed that the priorities in education have shifted toward physics and chemistry in recent decades. Moreover, biology and earth science were found to be perceived as ‘easy’ and ‘secondary’ areas in comparison to the ‘superior’ ones (physics and chemistry). This has been strengthened by the critical situation for earth science, as the education system of Japan often does not al low the students to select it. Thus, the parents wished for a more balanced system. There was a difference in adolescents’ perceptions of science areas based on gender and academic performance. Physics and chemistry were associated with boys and top performers, while biology and earth science were supposed to ‘fit’ girls and low performers.

This study analyses and evaluates the impact of two recent (2001 and 2010) education reforms on Ukrainian secondary schools, and, in particular, on science subjects (physics, chemistry, biology and Earth science), in terms of the structural, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the reformed disciplines. It also examines societal attitudes towards the changes introduced in education and explains the reasons behind them. The 2001 reform prescribed a gradual shift from a 10- or 11-year school system to a 12-year one as a measure needed for the integration of Ukraine into the European Higher Education Area according to the Bologna Process. The first graduates of the new course of study would have completed it in 2013. However, the reform implementation was interrupted on 6 July 2010, when the newly elected president signed Law 2442–17, which became a starting point for the 2010 reform enacting the return to 11 years of study. Both reforms were politically charged and met with a mainly negative attitude by the general population, which was particularly evident in the responses of teachers who considered certain key aspects of the 2001 and 2010 reforms to be an unnecessary political interference in an otherwise effective model of schooling.

This article explores the current state of the grain industry in Ukraine, the main problems and trendsof its development in the current economic conditions. The export potential of grain production has been investigated, economic feasibility and prospects of grain industry development in Ukraine have beengrounded, the amount of production and cereals consumption in the world have been analyzed and summarized.

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