School for Businessmen
Kyiv has hosted the third annual national conference on The Development of Management Education in Ukraine, organized by the Consortium for Improving Management Education in Ukraine and the US Agency for International Development for the heads of Ukrainian and Polish institutions of higher education as well as businessmen and government officials.
When the participants discussed ways for more effective teaching in business schools, they noted that partnership between professors and students was a rare occurrence because lectures and the traditional approach to education still predominate. The absence of this kind of cooperation is a special problem for adult learners. Shortcomings inherited from the previous model of education has also created two other major problems: the inability of education to rapidly meet business needs, the teaching of courses with no practical application, and the shortage of any objective assessments of business education, such as a graduate’s performance on the labor market.
Pavlo Sheremeta, Dean of the Business School at Kiev-Mohyla Academy National University, told The Day’s correspondent, “In my opinion, teachers are the biggest problem. Business can only be taught by those who have hands-on experience, are efficient in their walk of life, know how to put material across, and have command of a foreign language. It is extremely difficult to find this kind of teacher. The consortium provides an opportunity to expand the network of contacts, increase the number of prospective teachers, and show the Ukrainian and foreign teachers new standards of teaching in this field, which also promotes a wider flow of information. I must point out that the third conference was held in a creative atmosphere in contrast to the first one held in Odesa in 1999, when all the Ukrainian teachers said was ‘This is ruled out here!’ Now I did not hear such phrases. What we heard were proposals about how to improve the teaching process and information about what has already been done and where it is better to seek contacts.”
Incidentally, the Consortium for Improving Management Education in Ukraine has been cooperating for three years with over forty Ukrainian institutions of higher education to develop new ideas, technologies, and resources to implement modern teaching methods adapted to the requirements of Ukrainian entrepreneurs and business circles. The consortium was founded as partnership between two US universities, the University of Minnesota and the Business School of St. Thomas University, and two Polish establishments, the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn and the Warsaw School of Economics. The consortium program also includes assisting Ukrainian teachers to train contemporary business leaders and those of the next generation, envisages professional upgrading and curriculum development workshops, and a series of conferences on reinforcing Ukrainian business schools. In addition, Ukrainian business school heads and teachers are being given a chance to take part in exchange programs and travel abroad to acquaint themselves with the best methods applicable under Ukraine’s conditions. The organization also supports joint research projects, publishes books and articles on the situational methods of teaching, as well as creates, prints, and distributes teaching materials and aids.
