This decision was made this week by the Vilnius City Council and will take effect from December.
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According to the school community, changing the name was the initiative of the progymnasium itself, because currently the name “Taika” reflects a universal and important value, but it is generic and less specific to a particular educational direction.
According to them, the aim is to give the school a more focused identity based on humanistic, civic, and critical thinking values.
The name L. Donskis was chosen because of his activities and ideas associated with respect for the person and their dignity, critical thinking, as well as the ability to resolve conflicts peacefully and with reasoned arguments.
According to the school community, changing the name will contribute to a clearer school identity, create conditions for developing focused educational traditions and culture, and strengthen its distinctiveness and recognizability.
Vilnius Mayor Valdas Benkunskas said at the council meeting that the municipality trusts the school community on this issue, so it is important to support the decision.
“We have had much bigger storms over name changes in other institutions, but here the initiative was very unanimously presented by the school community, with arguments and a quite clear positioning on why this name should appear,” he said.
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Council member Aleksandras Nemunaitis also agreed with the mayor that the school should not be imposed a name, and when deciding on it, the most important thing is to take into account the will of the school community.
“That would be very undemocratic and I think it is definitely necessary to consider. Is it possible to find a personality who would be unequivocally well regarded? Maybe Mother Teresa, but even then there would probably be people who would not like it,” he said.
Meanwhile, council member Povilas Pinelis raised the question of whether the municipality should have a more consistent policy on school names, drawing attention to the constantly changing names of the capital’s schools.
L. Donskis (1962–2016) was a philosopher, political theorist and commentator, historian of ideas, and social analyst.
His works stood out for their erudition, humanism, attention to freedom of thought and tolerance, and also promoted critical thinking, the nurturing of European values, and dialogue between different cultures and ideas.
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