Economic sciences/5. Human resources management

Candidate of economic sciences, associate professor Sirenko N.M.

Mykolayiv State Agrarian University

Prospects of Agrarian Education and Academic Science Development in Ukraine

Global world and European integration processes demand that Ukraine solve one of its main strategic tasks, namely providing modern quality of education while preserving its fundamental nature and relevance to urgent necessities of a person, society and the state. Social and economic problems of higher agrarian education and academic science will de solved, if every person as an active participant in this process will have their capabilities fully mobilized and potential realized. In this context human capital is crucial in the struggle for the quality of products of higher education as a sector of the state’s economy. Every member of society must be in the best way adjusted to their professional activity through maximum utilization of their individual capacities. This can be achieved by investing into higher education and continuing professional education, as well as accelerating progress in solving the fundamental task of streamlining the national system of education so that every person is able to receive new knowledge and skills necessary for their lifelong learning.

Unfavorable innovation climate in the agrarian sector of Ukraine is one of the key factors determining the low level of its competitiveness, especially after the decision to join WTO. The World Economic Forum ranks Ukraine 65^th out of 131 countries according to the role of innovation factors in the increase of competitiveness and 93^rd according to technology level. The overall index of competitiveness is 3.98 points, which corresponds to the 73^rd place.

The number of scientific workers in the agrarian sector of Ukraine in 2007 compared to 2006 decreased by 0.4 %. As of 01.01.2009 in the agrarian sector of the economy worked over 10,000 scientific workers (15 % of the overall number of scientific brainpower of the country), including 900 Doctors of Sciences and more than 5,000 Candidates of Sciences. The powerful resource of scientific brainpower is agrarian higher educational establishments, where 5,300 scientific workers are employed, including 534 Doctors of Sciences and 3,000 Candidates of Sciences.

Despite some decrease in the number of scientists and unsatisfactory stimulation of their work, Ukraine still occupies one of the first places in Europe according to the share of scientific workers in the workforce. The creation of “Economics of knowledge” is determined by one of the five key strategies of the European Union in the Lisbon Strategy, and according to this strategy the money allocated for science funding must not be less than 3% of GDP. The amount of budget money allocated for science in Ukraine is below the standards set by law (1.7 % of GDP) and is from 0.4 to 0.5 % of GDP. The academic sector of science is now receiving less than 7 % of the overall money allocated for science, and funding of scientific and technical works in universities is only 3% of the overall costs assigned for their upkeep, which is much less than in developed countries.

Government expenditure on scientific research in Ukraine in agriculture in 2007 compared to 2005 decreased by 50% and was only 0.03% of GDP produced in agriculture, whereas there has been observed the following trend in the world – developing countries finance research works almost entirely (90-95%) out of state budget.

Education financing in Ukraine normally has the following structure: 50% is given by the state, 49% is taken from tuition fees, and less than 1% is given by businesses. Generally, the Ukrainian government spends about 12% of budget money on education, while expenditures on staff training for agribusiness are less than 0.6% of overall expenses.

Therefore, the main weaknesses of the agrarian education academic science are excessive commercialization of science, restraint on the autonomy of agrarian universities, authoritarianism of the Ukrainian system of education, a certain rate lag in providing informational technology and equipment, limitation of financial resources for effective and complex realization of the chief aims of the agrarian education and science development, reduction in the state sector of the branch-wise science and low level of the agrarian universities integration.

Considering both strengths and weaknesses of the agrarian education and university science in Ukraine, world tendencies, advantages and disadvantages of the Ukraine’s integration to the Bologna process, possible strategies of the future long-term agrarian education and science development could be as follows [1]:

1. The strategy of external obtrusion which determines that our country’s agrarian education and academic science development is accompanied by destruction of the present achievements and traditions, which finally will lead to the creation of a system that structurally will equal the world ones. However, practical application of this system will face a set of obstacles connected with national, social and economical, mental and psychological peculiarities.

2. The strategy of innovative growth which shows if the present state of our society’s development is economically expedient. It includes satisfaction of the people’s educational wants, particularly rural population’s, its need to be mobile, the necessity to enrich the agrarian sector with experts of the new formation, modern technical achievements and the need to raise international competitiveness of the agrarian education and academic science. This strategy: 1) will be ensured by the heredity and evolutional peculiarities of the development tendencies, which will guarantee that the achievements and traditions of the national agrarian system of science and education are preserved; 2) will consider world tendencies of science and education development and changes caused by market demands; 3) will be directed to the future; 4) will provide high quality level and image of the country’s agrarian education and academic science.

The main strategic goals of the Ukrainian agrarian education and academic science innovative development strategy should be directed to support regulations of Magna Charta of Universities, especially the following ones [2]:

1. The future of mankind mostly depends on cultural, scientific and industrial development centered round universities which are considered centers of culture, knowledge and research.

2. Universities have a special task which lies in spreading knowledge among future generations. This task implies that in the modern world universities should serve society in general, and its cultural, social and economic future demands a substantial contribution to the future education.

3. Universities should provide future generations with education and upbringing which will teach them and others through them to respect the great harmony of the environment and life itself.

Guided by these regulations, the main objective of the future agrarian education and science development should become:

1) Ukrainian agrarian education – to create a national model of competitive multilevel agrarian education integrated into the world education system which satisfies society’s and person’s needs on different levels;

2) Ukrainian academic agrarian science – to create a system of efficient academic agrarian science and increase its quality level to encourage permanent development of the agrarian sector of our economy and country; to increase the quality of living conditions of Ukrainian people; to provide high quality higher agrarian education; to create necessary conditions for the integration of higher agrarian education to the world education and scientific system by intensifying the process of science and education integration, encouraging talented young people to participate in scientific research; to use the experience of the world leading universities and to make the self-rejuvenation of the national agrarian academic science possible.

Literature:

1. Сіренко Н.М. Концептуальні засади інноваційного розвитку аграрної освіти і університетської науки України. Науково-методичне видання / Н.М.Сіренко. – Миколаїв, 2009. – 48 с.

2. Bologna Declaration. Joint Declaration of the European Ministers of Education Convened in Bologna on the 19th of June 1999. – Доступ до ресурсу : http://www.bologna-berlin2003. de/pdf/bologna_declaration.pdf.