The South Ukranian National Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushynsky is a public university in the city of Odessa, Ukraine.
Founded in 1818 as the Pedagogical Institute at Richelieu Lyceum, the university is one of the oldest educational institutions in Ukraine and the first teaching university on the northern Black Sea coast.
During its 200-year history, the university has had numerous name changes, liquidations and updates. In 1945 it was named after artist and teacher Kostiantyn Dmytrovych Ushynsky, due to its achievements in the training of teaching staff.
During World War Two, the institute was evacuated and relocated to the city of Bayram-Ali in Turkmen SSR, where it stayed until 1944. Some 1,500 students and teachers went to fight at the front, nearly half of whom were killed.
Today, faculties include primary education, history and philosophy, arts and graphics, music and choreography, physics and mathematics, philology, foreign languages, preschool pedagogy and psychology, medicine, and social studies and humanities. Institutes include Postgraduate Education and Certification, and Physical Education, Sports and Rehabilitation.
More than 2,000 scientific papers are published annually by the university, which has founded scientific journals in philosophy, political science, sociology, psychology, pedagogy, philology and others.
The International Centre for Distance Learning allows lecturers and students to participate in more than 30 international projects, such as with Israel, Turkey, the USA, Lithuania, and China.
Teachers, scientists, students and graduates have included two State prize laureates, 25 Olympic champions and more than 50 champions and winners of European and World Championships.