The university should not be a “factory”: what changes await students
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What did we, Ukrainians, understand during the war? That we are an anti-fragile, resilient society. Decentralized, autonomous, closely connected horizontally – this is about us. It was thanks to these features that the Ukrainians were able to withstand the first, most difficult months of the full-scale invasion.
At the time when our soldiers are defending our land, we must do everything in our power so that they return to a better country, at least a little changed. A country that focuses not on hierarchical, but more on horizontal connections. They returned to education that is as friendly as possible to the acquirer, which helps him crystallize as an active citizen, able to plan his own life and make important decisions independently.
On November 21, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted in the first reading the draft Law “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Development of Individual Educational Trajectories and Improvement of the Educational Process in Higher Education.”
This draft law is one of the elements of the improvement of the higher education system, which provides for a powerful strengthening of the student’s subjectivity. After all, a university should not be a “factory” where standard knowledge is mechanically given, but a real community, a living environment in which a person develops effectively.
After the adoption of this draft law, students will be able to manage their educational trajectories more flexibly, and higher education institutions will have more freedom in the organization of studies.
Learn at your own pace
Currently, students have a dosed, clearly defined annual load of 60 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits. The draft law provides that students will be able to freely distribute their study load within the range of 30 to 80 ECTS credits per year. That is, they will have the opportunity to independently establish a comfortable balance between study, rest or work.
For unregulated specialties (these are those that are not included in the list of 28 regulated specialties approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine), it is planned to provide more freedom in the choice of disciplines.
The minimum rate of selectivity will be 25%, but under certain conditions institutions will be able to increase selectivity even up to 50%. Therefore, applicants for whom it is important to form their own educational trajectory as freely as possible should pay attention to unregulated specialties.
We at the MES are convinced that higher education should be focused on the student as much as possible: his educational requests and needs, comfortable learning conditions, and the opportunity for self-realization. Therefore, the choice of elective courses should be the student’s business, and not the implementation of “voluntary-forced” decisions in higher education institutions.
At the same time, the established norms of teacher workload should remain, because they are directly related to funding. That is, if only one person enrolls in a selective course, the ZVO will not be able to organize its teaching. Therefore, the formation of optional courses should be approached responsibly – both by the administration of higher education institutions and students.
Elective courses should be relevant and oriented to the current demands of education seekers, and students should choose responsibly and take into account what elective courses their fellow students choose. It is worth remembering: the larger the institution, the more choice of disciplines for students. This is one of the important factors managed by the Ministry of Education and Culture during the modernization of the network of higher education institutions.
Those who choose to study in regulated specialties will have less choice – the selective component for them is planned to be reduced to 10%. Stricter requirements for regulated specialties are necessary in order to comply with the standards of higher education in the preparation of specialists for particularly responsible work, so that those seeking education are guaranteed to acquire specific professional competencies. In particular, we are talking about atomic energy, medicine, military service, and the legal field. By the way, legal professions are classified as regulated in most EU countries.
Protect yourself from a hasty decision
The bill also provides for the introduction of interdisciplinary programs. This means that students will be able to enter a certain branch first, and after completing 60-120 ECTS credits, they will be able to choose a specialty within it. This will allow you to learn more about specialties during your studies, to correlate your own abilities and expectations with them – and to really choose “your” direction for further development. However, this is only an option, not a necessity: everyone who decides to major in a specific educational program, rather than a branch, will be able to do so.
In order to ensure the quality of educational services and preserve the limits of assimilation of new material, regulation of the volume of classroom classes is introduced: at least 10 hours (out of 30) for bachelors and at least 8 hours (out of 30) for masters in one ECTS credit. Students will have a certain number of hours to work with the teacher – in lecture or practical formats.
Mykhailo Vynnytskyi, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, specially for UP. Life
Publications in the “View” section are not editorial articles and reflect exclusively the author’s point of view.
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