Innovative economy,

Long ago academics proved that a country, 70 percent of whose citizens do not have a secondary technical education, has no future, Volodymyr Halytsky, director of the State Employment Center of Ukraine, told The Day.

The Ukrainian government must invest knowledge in the economy instead of using and exporting raw materials if we are to secure steady development and a prosperous future for our country, as well as to ride out the demographic crisis. We must sell technologies, not raw materials, Halytsky says.

For example, the invention of new cell phone functions and sales of these products generate more profits than decimating forests and selling lumber, activities that have serious environmental consequences.

Another example is the tobacco industry, where around 13,000 Ukrainians worked in 1991. Today this number has fallen to 6,000. New equipment made it possible to halve the number of tobacco factory workers.

The training of personnel is a strategic question relating to Ukraine’s future, and the state should pay special attention to this issue. The main problem is that bureaucrats should be made aware of what kind of workforce our country needs. Europe already gets cheap labor from Ukraine - about 6 million workers. Is it not time to bring our Ukrainian workers home instead of complaining about the shortage of hands?

Daria Khalturina is a sociologist and senior research associate at the Center of Civilizational and Regional Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The co-author of the book The Russian Cross, who has written dozens of articles on demographic problems, alcohol-related mortality, and other topics, told The Day why we should be investing more in increasing the number of people with higher education:

“Ukraine needs genuine free higher education for all those who want one. All over the world the proportion of industry and agriculture in the GDP is decreasing, while the proportion of services is on the rise. According to the World Bank, Ukraine is no exception.

“Moreover, countries in which the so-called innovative knowledge economy plays a crucial role are the most competitive ones.

Nowadays, a manager, programmer, or financial expert makes a far greater contribution to the GDP than a turner or a tractor driver. Tellingly, the unemployment level among people without a higher education in Ukraine and Russia is higher than that of degree-holding graduates.”

But even more importantly, an excellent higher education is the most powerful protective technology that helps people live longer and more meaningful lives. All over the world, people with higher education live longer than those without one.

In the post-Soviet space, due to widespread drunkenness, smoking, and drug abuse, the gap among men is huge - 20 years. This gap arose during the Soviet era, when manual workers earned more than engineers.

Most men without higher education do not live to see 60. The reason is that highly-educated men smoke less and drink more sparingly. Addiction to opiates is also more widespread in vocational schools than in institutions of higher education.

Today vocational schools are a hotbed of social ill-being. This is why, according to Khalturina, it would be a good idea for Ukraine, where the demographic situation is one of the worst in the world, to introduce a baccalaureate-level higher education, like in France, Germany, and the UK.