THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SAFETY STANDARD FOR EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES AS A NEW AREA OF ADMINISTRATIVE AND LEGAL REGULATION UNDER MARTIAL LAW

Abstract

Background. The legal regime of martial law in Ukraine has led to significant changes in the administrative and legal regulation of the educational sphere, in which safety requirements have become the determining factor in organizing the educational process. Ensuring the accessibility of education cannot be considered outside the context of safety. This situation underscores the need to develop a comprehensive administrative and legal framework for the safety standards for educational activities. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the essence, content, and place of the safety standard for educational activities within the system of administrative and legal regulation of education under martial law, as well as to develop proposals for its normative consolidation in order to ensure a balance between safety and accessibility of education.

Methods. The study employs a set of general scientific and special legal methods: dialectical, formal-legal, system-structural, functional, and the method of legal modeling.

Results. Under martial law, the availability and suitability of civil protection shelters have effectively become the key criterion for permitting educational institutions to conduct face-to-face education. The study demonstrates that fragmented regulation of safety requirements in legislation leads to an expansion of public authorities' discretionary powers and contributes to inconsistent law enforcement practices. The author proposes a doctrinal definition of the safety standard of educational activity as a set of normatively defined, organizationally and technically ensured mandatory requirements for the functioning of educational institutions aimed at minimizing risks to the life and health of participants in the educational process under emergency legal regimes.
The safety standard is considered a special level of legal regulation of physical safety that complements the general concept of a "safe educational environment". The study also substantiates the need to amend the Licensing Conditions for Conducting Educational Activities by introducing a mandatory requirement for the availability of suitable shelters or guaranteed access to them.

Conclusions. The study demonstrates that, under martial law, safety is transformed into an independent legal prerequisite for the exercise of the right to education. It also substantiates the need to establish the safety standard of educational activity at the level of subordinate legislation and to amend the Licensing Conditions for Conducting Educational Activities by introducing mandatory criteria for equipping educational institutions with civil protection shelters. The implementation of the proposed changes will contribute to greater legal certainty, uniformity of administrative practice, and a proper balance between guaranteeing the right to education and protecting the life and health of participants in the educational process.