Higher education institutions in Ukraine are facing a complete changeover which will help the Ukrainian science leap all the way to the European scientific and educational level. At least, these are the expectations at the Ministry of Education and Science as it is beginning to introduce order in the higher education system. Education Minister Stanislav Nikolaienko recently spoke on the prospects that are opening for the Ukrainian science and education.
According to the minister, the quality of higher education in Ukraine is the number one topic and problem in his ministry. In addition to getting a university degree, graduates need to reach a higher standard of living and to work for the benefit of the country. But this is lacking in Ukraine. Educators believe the cause is in the outdated understanding of what higher education must do. “One third of the universities are not involved in research. They are simply reproducing old knowledge following time-worn lecture notes,” said the minister speaking about the future reform. “The main principle of higher education and the foundation of its quality is the indivisibility of education and science.”
What will make it possible to unite these two concepts is university rating and a change in the status of education institutions. First of all, universities will undergo evaluation at the international and ministerial levels. The second step of the reform will be the division of higher education institutions into research, transitional, and professional institutions until 2010. This way all higher education institutions will specialize in research at the international or national level, or will conduct research in one branch of science. Classification and rating will be influenced by such factors as the instituion’s premises, faculty, facilities and information technology, and the quality of research. Those institutions that fail to meet these criteria will be stripped of their licences or closed down altogether.
Ukrainian higher education institutions are likely to go through this reform almost painlessly. Statistics show that positive trends prevail in the sphere of science: since 2000 the number of graduate and doctoral students has significantly increased, and the number of successfully defended theses is also growing. However, the gap between young researchers and their older colleagues is still a problem: the average age of Ph.D. and Dr. Hab. degree-holders is 50 to 60. The ministry plans to encourage talented youth to pursue studies not only by higher monthly allowances, but also by offering opportunities of getting training abroad.
“Our country does not have inexhaustible natural resources, and that is why we have to advance using our intellectural power,” Nikolaienko emphasized. The prerequisites for this are in place: the minister regarded as successful the process of impletementing European forms of education in accordance with the Bologna Declaration. As The Day previously mentioned, this year all higher education institutions of Ukraine, without exception, are evaluating their students’ knowledge using the system of credits and ratings. And although the final results will be clear only at the end of the academic year, the minister said that even now teachers report an increase in students’ performance.
