IGOR IANKOVSKYI ABOUT EDUCATION – 2017: HOW TO SATISFY THE HUNGER FOR THE “PROFESSIONS OF THE FUTURE”

The public demand for the new quality of life gradually becomes the indispensible component of basic reforms in Ukraine. It is to be noted, that lately the accents of those reforms have been displaced towards the main drivers of innovative economies worldwide – towards the science and education.

In the past two month the prime-minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has admitted, that for the overall success of reforms, the tectonic changes in national educational system are required.

Specifically his statement was about higher education and the need of reforming the National Academy of Science: the science should be integrated into the real sector of economy in order to implement national scientific accumulations in different spheres.

Furthermore, at the meeting with Kyiv Polytechnic Institute’s students, dedicated to the outcomes of reforms in 2016, Volodymyr Groysman stated: “You, your parents and me personally need your knowledge and your success. When you come to apply for a job after the university just with the diploma, you could be rejected. But when you come with the diploma which confirms the quality of the knowledge received, you will be successful. You will have a good job, relevant salary and marketable skills – everything needed for success”.
“Each and every Ukrainian should feel and comprehend that the higher education means not only the diploma”.

Such words mean a positive signal to the educational system, which is waiting for reforming long enough. The society has already formed the demand for this process and the State was able to voice it. On the other hand the businessmen are complaining not just about the lack of qualified workforce, they talk about the acute need of requalification of the every second graduate from Ukrainian universities who is planning to get a job in modern business realities. The most talented of them are literally “voting by legs”, choosing to continue their education and career abroad because of the lack of opportunities for the creation of innovative businesses in Ukraine.
The specs of professions themselves, as the attitude towards the working process in the world nave changed drastically. As of now, we should rethink not only the ways of educating doctors, economists, technologists, lawyers and managers, but create an integrated approach to education considering new economic realities. In which, everything would be different from what we used to – from the process of earning, educating and curing, to the role of the State in those processes. Hundreds of thousands of State agents would become useless, replaced by BigData-based programs. It would be enough to possess a modern communication device with a set of relevant applications in order to get medical help, learn new skills, pay taxes, and organize business processes and social activities.
That is why in order to accomplish the qualitative reforming of education; the notion of the “professions of the future” should be put as a cornerstone. To do so one should analyze not only Ukrainian, but also global economic processes. Already now the modern business has a demand for cyber detectives, network doctors, architects of augmented and virtual realities, digital archeologists, IT-evangelists and other professions.

Someone could get skeptical about raising such specialists in Ukrainian realities, but this approach could become our competitive edge as a nation.

There is nothing bad in allowing the foreign corporations and investors to recruit talented Ukrainian specialists who have been trained for the “professions of the future”. However, this process should go in hand with the possibility to invest into Ukrainian innovative cluster by paying taxes under its jurisdiction. By that way the international corporations will get the innovatively trained workforce, Ukrainians themselves will get lucrative jobs while staying at home and the State budget – the financial resources needed for further development of education and science.

The hardest task on the way towards such changes is to find a common platform to reunite the State, business actors, innovators, scientific community and civil society. The purpose of such union is not only the exchange of information about the need of innovative changes; it has a more complicated mission – to make this message heard by a major part of the society. Each and every Ukrainian should feel and comprehend that the higher education means not only the diploma and the way of obtaining a lucrative job. First and foremost this is the way of finding yourself in the innovative reality. This is the base for the most optimal decisions in unknown and the most outstanding situations.

"Initiative for the Future" – is a Ukrainian Charity Foundation, founded by Igor Iankovskyi – a successful Ukrainian businessman, financier and philanthropist. Charities unite like-minded people in a common goal - to develop and implement educational and cultural programs in Ukraine. Activities of the organization are based on voluntary initiatives.

Since its creation, the Foundation supports talented young people from all over Ukraine, contributing to the creation of a highly cultured society. The Foundation has a strong international dimension, having successfully completed a range of projects abroad: in Belgium, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom and the USA.

12, Amosova Street, build. 1,
“Horizont Park” Business Center,
Kiev, 03680, Ukraine

This release was published on openPR.