“Ukrainian higher educational establishments are now busy with surviving, rather than with preparing a competitive graduate.” This statement was made by Serhii Kvit, president of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, during the debates organized by the Efficient Management Fund and British company Intelligence Squared. The purpose of the organizers was to prove or refute the thought that today Ukrainian higher educational establishments prepare uncompetitive graduates.
Before the debates, spectators had a possibility to vote on the following question: “Do Ukrainian higher educational establishments prepare uncompetitive graduates?” Fifty-four percent agreed, 30 percent had the opposite opinion, and 16 percent remained undecided. Six speakers formed two teams.
The position of the “for” team, which consisted of Georgiy Abdushelishvili, senior partner of recruiting company Ward Howell (Russia); Frances Cairncross, rector of Exeter College (Oxford
University), and Volodymyr Lavrenchuk, head of board of Reiffeisen Bank Aval, was well argued for, clear, and at the same time painful, because the author is a “brand-new” product of this same higher education system.
The team “against” was a trio of advocates of the Ukrainian educational system: Serhii Kvit, Yurii Lohush, vice-president of Kraft Foods and general director for the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Vitalii Butenko, director on company strategy and takeover at Donbas Fuel and Energy Company. However, the arguments of this team seemed to be weaker: built on personal examples, they justified the weakness of the system by the fact that the competitiveness of graduates is their own matter, but not of the higher educational establishments which prepared them.
Natalia Izosimova, director of the Efficient Management Fund, initiated the discussion. Based on her words one could come to the conclusion that she was personally the supporter of the “for” team. “Conditions of the modern world are changing dynamically. And when we talk about the level of knowledge adequate to the requirements of the present time, we mean not the quantity of knowledge, but the ability of a person to constantly study, quickly find necessary information, synthesize it, and correctly use it in practice,” says Izosimova.
“The main drawback of graduates from Ukrainian higher educational establishments is the absence of efficient communication skills,” believes Volodymyr Lavrenchuk, head of the board of directors (Reiffeisen Bank Aval) and a representative of the “for” team. “While accumulating knowledge, students absolutely don’t acquire their own active position (evidently postponing it for later), they don’t realize that education is not limited to five years of university, but lasts continuously and constantly renews itself,” he said. “On the other hand, university lecturers teach the same theory for many years not caring enough to enhance their own level, enriching their knowledge with new, recent information and mastering up-to-date technologies to better teach the material. The former and the latter combined lead to inefficiency and students’ focus on education per se without aiming at a result.”
However, Lohush is sure that precisely the imperfection of Ukraine’s education system ensures the formation of graduates’ emotional intellect, resourcefulness, and logic. “Our students have a hard time studying: it’s difficult to find a proper handbook and the physical infrastructure is insufficient. So they have to get accommodated. And precisely the quick wit of graduates help them get accustomed to job markets of post-Soviet countries,” he said.
One more argument of the “for” team was that quantity not always guarantees quality. Cairncross, representative of Oxford University, one of the most prestigious higher educational establishments in the world, believes that in Ukraine there are too many higher educational establishments; they are too small, too poor, and thus unable to ensure the quality of education they are expected of. “No Ukrainian higher educational establishment belongs to the group of the most popular rating systems in the world, while universities of much smaller countries have representatives there,” says rector of Exeter College, Oxford University. Moreover, Cairncross called cheating, which is so wide-spread in Ukrainian universities, as well as bribery, absolutely unacceptable for qualitative European education. Among American and European students the practice of cheating is not widespread because it is strictly suppressed by both teachers and students. The latter consider it their duty to report the fact of unfairness to the teacher. A student caught cheating in Ukraine is threatened with spoilt reputation or a fail grade, while in Europe or America he or she will face expulsion from university. A substantial argument to motivate honest examining, isn’t it?
Higher educational establishments really play an important role in the preparation of highly qualified specialists. Knowing one’s profession is not enough – one should be aware of the practical application of one’s knowledge and the society’s demand for it. Unfortunately, not so many Ukrainian universities realize and undertake the function of ideological and cultural enrichment of their future graduates. Positive examples are Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Ostroh Academy, and International Management Institute.
Butenko is absolutely convinced that only graduates themselves can make them competitive, and it is not so important from which university they received their diplomas. After graduating from a not very prestigious Canadian higher educational establishment, Butenko dreamt of working in Wall Street but was told that if he was not a graduate of Harvard or Yale, this is not a place for him. The didactic effect of this example is that Butenko has found a job in Wall Street anyway and was successful at that, thus refuting the stereotypical idea of conservative Englishmen.
After the debates the audience voted again. The position didn’t change drastically. Except the number of the “undefined” decreased: “for” – 53 percent, “against” – 37 percent, and “don’t know” – 10 percent. One can’t say for certain whether the opinion of the audience represents the view of Ukrainians generally. Though, it is absolutely unpleasant that even among the audience (and these were mainly students) the bigger part still doesn’t believe in the competitiveness of a graduate from Ukrainian higher educational establishments.
