What is the Ministry of Education and Science guided by when consolidating universities? Explanation of Lisovoy

What is the Ministry of Education and Science guided by when consolidating universities? Explanation of Lisovoy

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Consolidation of universities is influenced by a number of factors, in particular demographic and economic, and the purpose of combining higher education institutions is to increase their competitiveness.

According to him, there are now about 140 universities in Ukraine, but there are not enough students to provide employment for these universities. A number of small universities were “born” from branch institutes and technical schools.

About this told Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi in an interview for “UP. Life”.

“From 2030-2035, we may have a catastrophic situation with demographics, when there will be too many unemployed for one working person.

In order to save the country’s economy, this economy must have a very high added value – be intelligent, have a high specific weight of innovations. This requires well-trained specialists who graduate from both higher education institutions and professional technical schools”he explained.

Another factor that prompts the state to review the network of higher education institutions is competition with Eastern European and European universities.

“We are entering the European space and can win if we take adequate measures,” – said the minister.

The Minister of Education explained that three types of universities will be formed in Ukraine.

• A city-, region-forming intellectual center with a high component of research activity

Such universities will train specialists in all specialties, have a high level of autonomy, a different approach to financing, and a management model from stakeholders.

• Branch universities

We are talking about regionally oriented institutions – for example, forestry and metallurgical universities can stay in a certain region, where the specific weight of this industry is high.

• World-viewing small universities

These are small universities, such as the Ukrainian Catholic University, Ostroh Academy, Kyiv School of Economics, etc.

“Most of the society does not know about the unification of institutions, because they happen normally, qualitatively, with the consent of the parties. Attention is drawn only to those cases where agreement is not reached.

All strong, powerful ZVO will remain intact – we will only add capacities and capabilities to them. We unite universities of equal strength in regions where a large number of such institutions are not needed. Where there are weaker and stronger universities – we join”– remarked Lisovyi.

We will remind, Oksen Lisovyi too explainedwhy the accession of Tavriyya University was postponed.