Ukraine inherited rather well developed system of education from the USSR. Yet, it was not flexible enough to meet the requirements of the free market economy marked with the workforce migration and unstoppable urbanization.
Numerous state-owned companies went bankrupt and their assets were sold off. Those have often comprised kindergartens.
As people left villages and small towns due to the lack of job offers, provincial school deteriorated, number of school students decreased. On the other hand, schools in big cities became overcrowded as more and more people moved to the capital and oblast centres, but the social sphere lagged behind and no new schools were built.
Soviet-time institutes were granted status of universities; yet their staff was not proficient enough to get involved in scientific research. A set of professions became very popular, e.g. lawyer, economist, banker, leading to the introduction of these courses even in universities specialising in other fields.
Another trend was opening of private universities with zero quality of training as pure business projects. Besides, creation of regional branches with nominal (often de facto non-existent) faculty added to the Ukrainian education image losses.
Today primary education does not cover every child eager to enter it; secondary eduction is severely underfunded, its curriculum is not connected with the real life; tertiary education just provides diplomas and sometimes outdated theoretical background but not the field expertise.
Ukrainian education strongly needs reforms.
Uqraine.com - Ukraine Outlook ::: Comprehensive analytics by an independent non-partisan self-funding Kyiv-based think tank - current developments review as seen by a Ukrainian citizen
