Вінніпеґ Український № 8 (20) (October 2016)

Ukraine. Україна
he education system, which is still functioning
in Ukraine, was established in the Soviet Union
T with the quite specific purpose: people had to be
wheels and screws in the great state machine.
It had the ambitious goal - to spread the ideas of communism,
but in fact its power in the world. Today, almost
thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many
people do not even believe that such a goal was actually
proclaimed.
That’s what said about education and upbringing in the
USSR its chief ideologist and founder Vladimir Lenin:
“What should we take from the old school, the old science?
Old school said that it wants to create a comprehensively
educated person, that it teaches science in general.
We know that it was a complete lie. Rejecting the old
school, we have an aim to take from it only what we need
to create the genuine communist education. It is necessary
that the whole point of education, upbringing and
training of today’s youth will be the cherishing of communist
morality. Our morality is entirely subordinated
to the interests of the class struggle. Our morality is
derived from the interests of the proletariat class struggle.
We say: morality is what serves as the destruction of
the old exploiting society and what unites all the working
people around the proletariat, it is building a new society
of communists”.
Thus narrowly utilitarian orientation of Soviet education,
although it provided the elimination of illiteracy
and provided quite high level of knowledge in mathematics
and engineering, was, however, ineffective compared
to the education and science in societies where the free
competition of educational programs, methods and scientific
knowledge in general were not banned or placed
under the strict control of the party nomenclature that
was armed with the only correct doctrine.
When in the early 90’s the “leading and guiding” ceased
to exist, the oligarchic-nomenclature group came to
power, which had no ambitions to create something, but
those people had the well-established desire to enrich
themselves. The whole education and training system,
set up by the Communists, was left without the core idea
and thus essentially without a master, so it had no definite
goal. A new oligarchic government has failed to formulate
a clear idea – what Ukraine we are building.
However, we know that no work can be done if there
is no main idea or purpose. In Ukraine there is still no
clear vision whether it is now a social state, or if it follows
the liberal capitalist model. Unfortunately, no one knows
exactly how to educate young people, for which purposes
and where they will use the acquired knowledge. So we
mechanically teach children and young people using the
old Soviet schemes and add a bit of Christian morality (the
Ten Commandments), mainly declaratively. However, as
the realities of the everyday life often contradict these
commandments, the society and our young generation are
disoriented. Will this transition from the communist to
the global trend be completed, we shall see, and whether
there would finally be a positive result for the society is
still unknown.
Meanwhile as the salary of any specialist abroad increases
substantially as they move westwards, the question
for who we (Ukrainian state) educate our youth is
not rhetorical. In reality it turns out that we (Ukraine)
prepare our young people to be competitive in the global
labor market. And in the personal dimension it is probably
good. However, in terms of public interest, all taxpayers
– it is a complete waste. Even those savings that qualified
Ukrainian workers send their relatives from abroad,
do not compensate for those costs that society spent on
their education and upbringing. Meanwhile, host countries
receive not only skilled workers but also law-abiding
citizens, which Ukrainian society has prepared for them
and transferred without any compensation.
This situation requires immediate solution. And we
think that the key to this problem should be primarily
searched in economic and legal dimensions. Because
without the development of its economy and the strong
protection of property rights, Ukraine will remain a donor
country for the states where these two conditions are
ensured, and thus workers there enjoy relatively higher
wages.
However, the modern free market is not just a platform
for exchange of different kind, similar to the fairs
existing in antiquity. It is characterized by waves of “creative
destruction”; what was new a decade ago, now is out
of date, and it is replaced by more advanced models, new
equipment, institutional forms, techniques and methods
of interaction that no one could previously even imagine
... This is a form of spontaneous order. Such innovations
are possible only in a predictable environment, where
there are guaranteed rights and the rule of law. Such an
ideology became the basis for the education and training
in many countries in the second half of the 20th century.
The rapid economic growth was achieved thanks to millions
educated citizens.
Today, in many countries there is an overproduction
of educated citizens, contrary to the belief that all the
adults should have the higher education. In fact, over the
past few decades, there was an extensive development of
education, which means that the overall quality of education
relatively declined but more and more people have
been graduating from colleges and universities. So today,
in many countries there is a problem: what to do with
these educated, but generally unnecessary professionals.
Maybe this explains a significant rise of the fees for education
in the US universities, which can be considered a
barrier, created to reduce the pressure on the labor market.
Perhaps it also explains the considerable bureaucracy
of research activities, the implementation of multiple,
often artificial ratings, measuring the citations’ frequency
and so on.
In Ukraine, the process has its special features. Modern
Ukrainian authorities are not interested in the develop-
26 Український Вінніпеґ - ЖОВТЕНЬ 2016 -