Every third Ukrainian with a college degree is unemployed
How, why, and for whom are university rankings done in Ukraine?
A completed education does not always mean that a graduate is a truly educated individual. This is true of all levels of education in Ukraine: secondary, technical/vocational, and higher education, even though 50 percent of young people have such diplomas in Ukraine.
Employers can spend hours discussing this problem: there is something wrong with Ukraine’s educational system, when every year institutions of higher learning produce some 25,000 graduates. According to official employment agency statistics, every third person on their lists has a higher education or has fulfilled some of the requirements.
Olena Osinkina, a data analyst at Best Center, says that the economy imposes certain requirements on Ukraine’s educational system, but a number of questions arise because this system is evolving according to its own laws. “Why, for example, does the system keep sending signals about regular underfunding, lecturers’ low salaries, and obsolete capital assets, even though six percent of the GDP is devoted to education? Why are there no innovative breakthroughs in Ukraine, considering that we have 900 institutions of higher learning?”
These questions must be answered as soon as possible because the economy and education cannot exist separately. The consequences are already noticeable today. The CKM Company, the Ukrainian Development Foundation, and the Kyiv-based International Institute of Sociology (KMIS) recently completed a pilot study called Compass to ascertain the satisfaction rankings of Ukraine’s higher educational establishments (VNZs).
This is the first step toward a study of the labor market, namely supply, as satisfied by Ukraine’s VNZs, and demand (employers). According to the sociologists, this study was sparked by the low numbers of qualified personnel and the gap between market demand and level of training of university graduates.
The methods of assessing 228 Ukrainian VNZs — higher schools that formally satisfy III-IV accreditation form requirements — were specially developed for this project and approved by Ukraine’s education ministry and the World Bank. These methods included comprehensive reports on every school of higher education in the study, students and graduates’ assessments, experts’ reports, and most importantly, employers’ views.
According to the sociologists, employers’ views of Ukraine’s institutions of higher education were the most crucial and objective. The resulting data include an assessment of education with regard to labor market demand, an overall evaluation of Ukraine’s VNZs by students and graduates, and expert assessments of every VNZ in the country.
“In May and June of this year we carried out face-to-face interviews and telephone surveys,” said Volodymyr Paniotto, the director of KMIS. “We also used e-mail and online polls, and came up with a total of some 1,200 respondents. We focused attention on the following two components: the views of graduates, who were faced with the problem of choosing a job, and those of employers, who have certain demands in regard to potential employees and their professional capacities.
“We polled about 200 employers, people who represent Ukraine’s most successful companies. We also divided our experts into two groups: those who work at the State Employment Center of Ukraine (157) and have access to data on employment opportunities for young graduates, and people from human resources departments from every oblast in Ukraine (103). There were also experts from the World Bank, the Academy of Pedagogical Science, and the Confederation of Employers of Ukraine.”
In the sociologists’ opinion, students were clearly uninformed; they were “not adequate” with regard to the overall idea of the research. This assessment system was aimed at creating a certain product that had to be evaluated by employers to see whether satisfaction, or lack of it, reflects the real picture at a specific VNZ. Students talked more about whether their educational demands had been met during their academic studies. (Naturally, students’ demands in Kyiv-based VNZs outstrip the demands of students who study in the regions.)
After studying the large number of responses, the experts concluded that both graduates and employers were satisfied with their programs of studies in economics, engineering and technical specialties, law, information technology, architecture, and construction. As a result, three rankings were formulated: a general one for all Ukrainian schools of higher education; one for a graduate’s major, and a regional one.
Top marks were given to Taras Shevchenko National University (Kyiv) and Kharkiv’s Yaroslav Mudry National Law Academy. Second place was assigned to National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Third place was given to three universities: Vadym Hetman National Economic University, National University of Internal Affairs, and National University of Construction and Architecture (all in Kyiv). Four and fifth places went to Kyiv’s National Trade and Economics University and National University of Donetsk.
In the regional standings, Lviv Polytechnic National University grabbed first place in the west, Taras Shevchenko National University got first place in central Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk National University got the best rankings in the south, and Yaroslav Mudry Law Academy got the best marks in the east.
“Of course, conducting rankings is nothing new; this is standard practice in Ukraine and elsewhere. The biggest ones are done in the US, Germany, and China. In Ukraine, this is being done on a national scale, although most of our rankings are aimed at assessing the performance of specific institutions of higher learning, the quality of students’ academic preparation, and whether they meet accreditation requirements. In the end, these rankings are aimed at assessing the process rather than the end result. Also, some VNZs ignore their graduates’ comments, while others disregard what prospective employers expect from graduates. We’re planning to do another study in November of this year, so our students can find out about Ukrainian university rankings by May or June 2009,” said Natalia Kryvulina, the manager of the SKM Company.
Experts say that rankings are just the beginning. The main thing is not to classify universities, but to “raise the question in society of the further development and selection of educational establishments.” Experts think that the answer to the question of whether a higher education is actually necessary is a rhetorical one or one to be asked in the future.
COMMENTARY
Maksym STRIKHA, Deputy Minister of Science and Education of Ukraine:
It has become standard practice for people to compete in every sphere and to determine who is best. University rankings are not a Ukrainian invention. As a rule, the leading rankings in the West combine certain objective indices, like the number of scholarly publications, number of students, and the results of their employment after graduation. At the same time, expert views are also taken into account. This is the basis for several of the best-known university rankings. I regret to say that at the moment there are no Ukrainian universities in these rankings. I think this is proof of more than just the objective level of these ratings. Obviously, our universities are no worse than many universities that are included in these rankings.
The thing is that the experts who make these assessments do not know about our universities. There are various kinds of rankings in Ukraine. Those in which our ministry was involved were the result of a very complex system of accumulating points: we assessed all aspects of university activities (teaching, research, teaching staff, premises, etc.). There are other rankings that are the result of experts’ surveys of a specific group of respondents. I am far from saying that the best rankings are completely objective.
At the same time, if one can dispute 20th or 40th place in the rankings, such rankings clearly determine the leaders, and no one has any doubts that the best technological universities are in Kyiv and Kharkiv, or that National Agrarian University is the leader among its counterparts. On the whole, rankings are quite useful, although they should not be absolutized. It’s good that they encourage some VNZs to aim for the top and, once they are there, to maintain their standings. This is an absolutely positive thing.
World university rankings published: no Ukrainian universities make the grade
The fourth university rankings list was conducted by the American newspaper Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the world’s leading network for top careers and education. A total of 2,300 employers and more than 6,300 lecturers were polled. They were not allowed to vote for their respective institutions of higher learning. First and second place went to Harvard and Yale, respectively, followed by Cambridge and Oxford. Most universities in the top ten and top hundred are in the UK and the US (California Institute of Technology placed fifth, followed by Imperial College London, University College London, the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Columbia University). Ann Mroz, the editor of Times Higher Education, says that Harvard’s funds alone equal the total annual revenues of the entire British sector.
There were six criteria used for the rankings, including the number of foreign students and the staff/student ratio. No Ukrainian universities made the list. An official at Moscow State University (MGU) said that these rankings do not correspond to reality because those who drew up the lists did not have enough preliminary data, for example, information about the numbers of foreign students. This lowered MGU’s position by at least 60 points.
However, the Russians will be able to satisfy their ambitions very soon. In June 2008 Moscow State University commissioned ReitOR, Russia’s “independent” company that specializes in university rankings, to draw up a list of rankings of institutions of higher learning in the CIS. This list, which includes 12 Ukrainian universities, will be available in late November.
