Ukrainian citizens have been quite worried lately about slow changes in the country's education. It should be noted that it was the least affected sector after the Soviet Union's political and economic downfall in 1991. All other spheres of our life underwent drastic and often destructive transformations, economic, cultural and social. There were crises in Ukraine's cinematography and book publishing. Lots of pioneer camps, children's centers and extra-curricular courses were closed.
Nevertheless, these industries began to revive a few years ago, this time in line with market principles and bolstered by private capital. We can watch our first Ukrainian films created by Ukrainian directors and producers in wonderfully-furnished and equipped movie theatres. More and more Ukrainian books are published every year. Lots of children's sanatoriums, camps and kindergartens have been opened in the past several years. Our people are obviously living better, even though this progress is not as fast as we would prefer it to be.
The educational system has been quite stable in those chaotic years of transformation. It too survived quite a few blows, like poor financing. In the mid-1990s, an average school teacher earned only 30-35 US dollars per month. Their colleagues from higher education establishments in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv and other big cities were luckier because they could lecture in several schools at a time. School and college teachers had no such opportunity, partly because the number of schools and colleges was decreasing.
The system was saved by a decision to allow universities and institutes to charge money for their services, as well as by the unbelievable desire of our citizens to gain knowledge and get a university degree. It was truly surprising to see thousands of young people enter private universities every year, when the country was being plagued by economic stagnation, unemployment (up to 10 million people) and colossal inflation (11,000 %). The apparently doomed and hopeless nation made it its priority to study, even though many educated professionals went to seek their fortune abroad, beyond the just lifted iron curtain. Hundreds and thousands of scientists and artists saw that no one appreciated their qualifications in Europe. They worked part-time, often doing the dirtiest and most unpleasant jobs. Their diplomas and degrees rarely affected their salary. Those millions of people realized that their education was not needed. It would have been pragmatic to think there is no necessity to spend money on education.
However, the logic of Ukraine's labor migrants was opposite. They asphalted roads and gathered crops in Europe … and sent money home to educate their children.
The number of higher education establishments in Ukraine has doubled in the past several years. There are 232 universities in the country today, both state and commercial. The number of students has also been growing steadily. There are now 2.7 million students, one of the highest figures in Europe. Almost one million pay for their education, investing in the sector as much as the government does. Ukraine's professional educators stimulated this explosive boom. The West refused to invite them, luring only our scientists.
However, it does not help answer what made Ukrainians want to get higher education in that challenging period of transformation. What made them see higher education, which seemed to have no value at all, particularly to western employers, as their paramount objective?
No special research was carried out to find out why it was so. However, as a professional pedagogue who often communicates with students, their parents and those wishing to have one more diploma, I can express my own opinion. I asked them many times what made them seek education when there was no obvious demand for it. Traditionally, I heard two answers.
First, all those who worked in European countries and met specialists there realized that our education was not worse than that in the West. They all told me they had seen no difference between the qualifications of specialists in Europe and Ukraine. This sense of professional and educational equality made our people confident that sooner or later their knowledge would be in popular demand in the modern world.
To be frank, European employers ignored the educational level of our fellow citizens not deliberately but because they hired them for part-time jobs. Those employers had no idea that their Ukrainian employees had diplomas and had worked successfully in science, which was as developed in the Soviet Union as in the rest of the world. The only real barrier, which, however, could be quite easily overcome, was language.
Recently, their forecasts have become reality. Russia, for example, offers our specialists excellent working conditions and social benefits. Germany welcomes eagerly our IT professionals. Some schools and colleges in Ukraine have signed agreements with firms in Portugal to prepare specialists for them. Many European companies open their offices in Ukraine, particularly to test their innovations and devices. And this is only the beginning! Europe is slowly but surely overcoming its biased attitude to the competence of our specialists, which helps Ukrainians feel as equals in Europe. Their experience, education and professionalism are valued.
The second reason why Ukrainians seek higher education lies in their mentality and innate desire to gain knowledge. It has always been prestigious to be educated in our society, particularly for unmarried women, whose education was their dowry.
In Ukraine, there has always been a link between education and social status. By the way, a person with an academic degree automatically became a member of the country's nobility. It is quite probable that our society began to appreciate the importance of education during the rule of Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise, who founded the first school in St. Sophia's Cathedral to teach chroniclers and book copiers, who were highly esteemed.
This respect for educated people explains why there were so many literate Ukrainians between the 15th and 18th centuries, when the Cossacks were ruling the country. There are lots of accounts by those visiting Ukraine then. Here is what one of them, Pavlo Alepsky, wrote when crossing Ukraine on his way to Moscow in 1653: "In that Cossack land, we witnessed a miraculous and great fact: they all, particularly women and their daughters, with very few exceptions, are literate and know how to stage church services and sing religious hymns. Priests teach orphans and do not allow them to roam the streets without studying." The traveler did not know there were lots of schools and teachers in Ukraine and that there was no connection and interdependence between our social hierarchy and the right to study. Russia imposed social divisions in education in Ukraine only in the 18th century.
In 1737, in the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, there were children of military leaders, municipal officials, merchants, Cossacks, craftsmen and even peasants. Education did not depend on people's social status and helped promote equality. This must have made average people and peasants wish to seek education.
By the way, the Russian government used education and language as their weapons, contributing to social inequality. It closed high schools, then fraternal schools, and imposed Russian in religious schools, where students could not understand it. Its prohibition on the writing and publishing of Ukrainian books was valid until the revolution of 1917. However, there is still no peace in Ukraine because of the Ukrainian language. Pro-Moscow forces demand that Russian be granted an official status. Recently, one of such politicians stated that the Ukrainian language was a language of folklore, not science. However, Ukrainians prefer to learn their own language and to use it in their studies at or European universities.
So getting higher education is not only the means of having a better job or earning a competitive salary but also a moral factor helping achieve high social status. It strengthens our self-esteem and dignity.
A friend of mine went on a car trip across Western Europe and Great Britain in the first year of Ukraine's independence. When I asked him to compare what he had seen there with our reality, he replied: "Our tanks will never appear on the shores of the English Channel. It is senseless to conquer or ruin them. It is vital to find ways how to coexist with them. Intelligent people would do this."
So Ukrainians chose education as a passport to Europe. Education is a universal key to success in any community. There is no surprise Ukrainians monitor closely and react emotionally to all plans by the Education Ministry. They want education to be improved but not reformed, seeing reforms as a ruination of what has been known as one of the world's best systems. All political forces and social classes demand that the Education Ministry ensure that education is of the highest quality.
Thus we believed it was a formality and waste of time to introduce a new 12-point grading system. Ukrainian society refused to understand this change, as well as plans by the ministry and certain political forces to merge smaller universities to reduce their number. Students staged rallies and marched to the capital to protest against those steps.
However, Ukrainians supported and approved plans to reduce the number of ineffective and merely virtual affiliates of universities, providing low quality services. They welcomed ideas to introduce computer testing, computerize schools throughout the country and retrain Ukrainian teachers regularly.
This would be an exaggeration to think that Ukrainians are only thinking about politics. We live, work, raise children and educate them to give them a means of achieving success and asserting dignity. Most of us cannot afford to support our offspring financially but we can give them a fishing line to fish for success and happiness.
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