On Friday, 6 September, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine decided to redistribute the rights and responsibilities between the rector, academic and supervisory boards of higher education institutions. This was reported by Komersant ukrainskyi
with reference to the a post by by Education and Science Minister Oksen Lisovyi on his Facebook page.
“Today, the government has made a decision that changes the approach to the management of higher education institutions. This is a pilot project – three universities will be the first to implement the changes,” Lisovyi wrote.
The Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine clarified that the following universities will be the sites for the implementation of this project:
- National Aviation University (after the reorganisation – State University “Kyiv Aviation Institute”);
- Zaporizhzhia National University;
- Precarpathian National University.
Supporters of this decision (including MP Roman Hryshchuk) notethat this will provide more financial freedom to the university, allowing it to manage its own revenues more flexibly and efficiently, including for raising salaries for teachers, repairing dormitories, laboratories and buildings.
“Aviation University will change its organisational and legal form. For the first time, a higher education institution will exist in the form of a state non-profit enterprise, instead of a budgetary institution, as it is now. Every hospital in Ukraine has already switched to this organisational and legal form, and we see positive results,” Hryshchuk wrote.
“The second resolution introduces a pilot project on real corporate governance of universities. Supervisory Boards will now have real powers to manage and make personnel decisions. This is an important precedent and a great attempt to reform universities,” the MP added.
However, when analysing the draft Government decision on the experiment (expanding the powers of Supervisory Boards in 3 universities), lawyers of the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine noted
- The rights of a higher education institution that determine its autonomy, established by the Law of Ukraine “On Higher Education”, cannot be restricted by other laws or regulations (Article 2 of the Law of Ukraine “On Higher Education”).
- Government decisions on pilot projects should be made on issues that require legislative regulation.
Thus, the lawyers of the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine did not visually review the draft decision of the Government (as stated in the Opinion of the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine).