Despite recent educational reform, the process of curricula preparation and revision is, as in the pre-reform period, almost entirely in the hands of the academic and ministerial bodies. In fact, as mentioned, other stakeholders are very rarely involved in this process and representatives from industry or private institutions do not play a role in the commissions and committees discussed.
Quite a long and complex process is characterising the courses reform. The rigidity of the decision-making process makes it nearly impossible to introduce new ideas and innovations within a reasonable time frame. The curricula, both in forestry and in forestry-related subjects, are still very much traditionally based, and new elements from other related disciplines (such as social sciences, economics, policy analysis, etc.) are a long way from being included.
The higher educational system in forestry, which is totally dependent on the State budget, is suffering from many of the same problems, economic constraints and political uncertainties of the country. Moreover, because the transition process to a market economy is just beginning in the forest sector, the university system (teaching and research) is still based on the traditional model. No real changes of the Ukrainian higher education system are expected without a radical reform in land ownership and the privatization of the woodworking industry.
Higher education in forestry still reflects the organization of a sectorial university, common in many centrally planned economies being focused on the "wood chain" concept. As a result, the university trains technicians to optimize wood production and processing in all sectors, ranging from nursery planning to furniture marketing (Pettenella and Andrian, 1999). The major problems and constraints, as well as strengths and opportunities, of the existing system are reviewed in Table 7; a thorough summary of issues in need of further reform.
At a recently held interview between the authors and the Dr Volodymyr Golubets43 some positive and negative aspects of higher education reform were highlighted.
The introduction of a multilevel educational system (bachelor, specialist, master and PhD) was considered a positive move toward improving the flexibility of the entire higher education system and so enable better adaptation to the emerging free market. During the Soviet period, both in the forestry sector and in all the technical and economic branches, colleges could only prepare technicians for traditional careers. Legislation now permits them to offer both young specialist and bachelor programs, thus better meeting the needs of the labour market.
Table 7: Problems and constraints in the reform of the university educational system
Main components |
Strengths and opportunities |
Problems and constraints |
University infrastructure |
Well-developed (buildings, laboratories, experimental forests, etc.). |
Low investment in restoration, turn-over, new acquisitions (research equipment, books and journals, PCs, etc.). |
Research and teaching staff |
Long tradition in forest education; well-educated scientists. |
Low and irregular salaries. Need for external (non-academic) sources of income. Reduced motivation to work at the university. Need for updating scientists in some subjects (mainly market-oriented). Need to reduce numbers of academic personnel dealing with traditional forestry subjects. |
Internal organization - general aspects |
Well-structured system of planning and control. |
Strong hierarchical structures (very limited decentralization of competencies and responsibilities). Reduced inter-disciplinary, inter-faculty and inter-departmental cooperation. Extremely reduced research and publishing activity (budgetary constraints). Needs for improving the criteria for selecting the university personnel. |
Internal organization - teaching activities |
Intensive and well-structured teaching activities (lessons, seminars, working groups, tests, examinations, etc.). Good ratio teachers/students. |
Based on old criteria of the "wood chain" (from the forest nursery to furniture making). Need to reduce teaching hours, to improve active involvement of students in teaching activities, to enlarge the number of optional subjects. Need to reduce the numbers of forest students. |
Links with the Ukrainian society/economy |
Good contacts with State forest enterprise, with forest administration and with the recently privatized woodworking industries. |
Reduced contacts with the "new users" of the forest resources: environmental NGOs, recreationalists, farmers, etc. No attention to the issue of public relations. |
International contacts |
Very good contacts with former socialist countries. High motivation to have new contacts with the Western world. |
Few contacts with the external world (budgetary constraints). |
| (Source: Andrian et al., 2000) |
The introduction of technical education in forestry at the university level is considered another positive aspect of the reform. In fact, it implies direct contacts between universities and forestry colleges are being established and those students from forestry colleges can now enter university at the bachelor's level and build on their practical and technical experience.
The ability of universities to enroll self-funded students is seen as a positive aspect. It represents an additional source of financial income for the usually cash-starved HE institutions, even if the funds are centrally managed and distributed. The number of admitted students is still controlled by the State, but up to 20 percent may be self-funded44.
Unfortunately, there are negative aspects; for example, due to fluctuating employment opportunities, newly introduced courses may produce an even larger base of better-educated, yet unemployed and frustrated graduates.
As a general rule, the share of the State budget dedicated to financing forest research and teaching institutions is still very low. Private funding could be a way of gaining additional money, but any agreement with the industrial sector, which is the only way to co-sponsor research, is a long way from reality. In fact, in some ways, the situation was considered more efficient prior to independence, when research projects were jointly run by the university and some branches of the industrial sector.
Reform of the taxation system is another important step for the development of the industrial sector, to enhance its demand for innovation, and thus to finance research. The benefits from this reform would be that both universities and private enterprise would gain from joint research programs.
If all the mentioned changes (reform of the land property regimes, privatisation of wood-working industries, new taxation system, etc.) are not introduced, there will be a serious risk of a general decline in the overall university system, mainly due to lack of motivation in teaching staff and to reduced financial support for any quality improvement. Consequently, students will not be offered adequate opportunities for proper theoretical and practical experience to face the changes that Ukraine urgently requires.
43 Dean of the Faculty of Wood Technology and Head of the Material Technology and Graphic Engineering Department, at the USUFWT, in L'viv; recently awarded the State Prize of Ukraine in the Sphere of Science and Technology and Academician of FAS of Ukraine
44 Tuition fees differ according to the specialization: for example, furniture designers are paid UAH 1 800 per year; woodworking engineers, UAH 1 200; and chemical engineers, UAH 900 .
