Society

In order to improve the quality of education, it must become more expensive

“Quality education should be expensive.” This is the opinion of Mykhailo Vynnytskyi, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine. He became a guest on the eighth episode of the fourth season of the Dopamine for Education podcast from the NGO Smart Education, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.

As you know, this year the Ministry of Education and Science introduced a pilot project to provide state grants for applicants who did not get into the budget but want to study at Ukrainian higher education institutions. If they received at least 150 points in two subjects of the National Multisubject Test (NMT), they could apply for state grants.

Evaluation of the interim results of this pilot project was one of the topics of conversation.

According to Mykhailo Vynnytskyi, grants mean that the state co-finances a contract teacher.

“The state gives you, for example, if you are a capable student, 25 thousand, and your contract costs 50 thousand. This means that you have to either earn it yourself or, perhaps, your parents will pay extra during the year. But in any case, 25 thousand is already a manageable amount, unlike 50 thousand,” the official said.

At the same time, he realizes that grants will make education more expensive.

“Quality education should be expensive. As a teacher and as a person who knows a little bit about the financial part of university management, I do not understand how it is possible to train any specialist in higher education for 25,000 hryvnias. And we have higher education institutions that offer this. Most of them are private, but still 25,000 hryvnias: come and pay. It’s just buying a diploma. This is the price for a year. I don’t understand how this can be done,” emphasized Mykhailo Vinnytsky.

The deputy minister also cited realistic statistics for Europe – how much higher education costs there. For example, according to him, even in the poorest countries of Europe (Romania and Bulgaria), training costs less than 3000 euros, and in Germany it costs 6000-8000 euros per year to train one student.

In Ukraine, the official states, the average price today is 1000 euros.

“In fact, it comes out to 46,000-47,000 hryvnias. This means that our teachers earn little. This means that our education is of low quality, because, obviously, teachers are not particularly interested. We have to raise the average cost of training one student. This is not a very popular idea, but it is another of the things behind the grants. It’s not just about fairness, it’s also about quality,” emphasized Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Mykhailo Vynnytskyi.

What is known about the state grant project

As you know, this year’s contract applicants could already receive a state grant. This applies to those students who have entered the first year of full-time or dual enrollment and have more than 150 points in two NMT subjects.

The state grant for higher education is the state’s support for a citizen to obtain higher education by co-financing education on a contract basis.

The state grant is targeted. That is, it can only be used to pay tuition fees at an educational institution; it cannot be used for any other purpose or converted into cash.

The state grant is a non-refundable aid, so it does not provide for additional obligations, such as work experience.

The vast majority of Ukrainian higher education institutions are participating in the pilot project to provide state grants to finance higher education in 2024.

As of November 05, according to Osvita.ua, 196 universities have joined the pilot project to introduce grants for higher education. At the same time, the list of universities is being updated and expanded.