UNA helps rural youths in Ukraine attend Kyiv Mohyla university (02/18/01)

UNA helps rural youths in Ukraine attend Kyiv Mohyla university

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Although the right to an education is guaranteed in the Constitution of Ukraine, nothing there speaks to the quality of that education, nor does it set out how that system is to be maintained. Guaranteed learning or not, as Ukraine's economy plummeted through the 1990s, its educational system floundered, leaving many Ukrainian students effectively unable to receive a basic education that would qualify them for entry into institutions of higher learning.

That dive was felt most acutely in villages and towns far from major population points, where the lack of salaries and resources experienced throughout the country was magnified, depriving students of teachers and textbooks.

Today there is consensus that the government needs to begin sinking more money into local village educational systems, but that does not help students who in the last decade were deprived of a "normal" education - many of them talented kids who grew up in the wrong place at an unfortunate time. These same kids, who have most of the skills needed to begin university studies, also lack the finances that seem more abundantly available to their city cousins.

To help even the playing field for at least a few of Ukraine's deprived rural youths, the Ukrainian National Association decided to give 10 such young adults a chance at a college education at one of Ukraine's most prestigious academic institutions. After discussions with the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, the UNA, through its Ukrainian National Foundation, agreed to pay the $1,000 tuition for five boys and five girls from villages in central and eastern Ukraine to take part in college preparatory courses at the university - rated for the last several years as one of the top two centers of academic study in Ukraine. The program becomes the third source of such funding in the United States for the NUKMA preparatory program.

Viacheslav Briukhovetsky, president of the NUKMA, said he was very pleased with the UNA's decision. He explained that the NUKMA has been working to raise its percentage of students from villages for several years.

"It troubles us because, demographically, we still do not represent Ukrainian society as a whole," explained Prof. Briukhovetsky. "We also are keenly aware that the village environment develops kids with high capabilities."

In the last few years, the NUKMA has worked to raise its non-Kyiv student population from 45 percent to about two-thirds of the total student body. In that time the percentage of students from villages has risen from about a half percent to some 6 percent.

"We understand that this is still not enough," explained Prof. Briukhovetsky, "We understand that village kids need to be further encouraged."

To provide an open door to students who for various reasons have marginal high school academic records but remain intent on a college education, three years ago the NUKMA developed a semester-long college preparatory course, which puts prospective students on the university's campus and in its dormitories as they take part in a pre-college level curriculum that touches all the required subjects, in the physical sciences as well as the humanities, and is aimed at helping them pass the school's entrance examination.

Only students who have applied to the school and have been turned down are offered a chance to take the preparatory curriculum, and then only those who come closest to passing what is considered a very difficult entry test. The top 20 percent of the students who complete the course are automatically enrolled in the NUKMA. The rest must retake the entry exam but, as Prof. Briukhovetsky explained, having become accustomed to the school, its teaching method and its requirements, the students have a much easier time passing the exam the second time around.

Prof. Briukhovetsky noted that about 25 percent of the 100 or so students who annually take part in the classes come from rural Ukraine.

The UNA became involved in the program after its president, Ulana Diachuk, contacted Prof. Briukhovetsky in early 1999 about supporting such a project. The dialogue that ensued led to the development of the UNA program and its requirements. First, the NUKMA nominated 26 potential students who had applied to the school, but failed the exam. Using UNA criteria that the eventual winners of the scholarships must have had competitive scores on their entrance examinations; have come from underprivileged families living in a village; and have identified themselves as Ukrainian, the university's administrators then reviewed academic records and held personal interviews before settling on the 10 students.

The five girls and five boys who are the recipients of the UNA grants come from villages in the eastern-central oblasts of Kirovohrad, Chernihiv, Poltava, Cherkasy, Kharkiv and Zhytomyr. All are between 17 and 18 years of age, with the exception of one, who is 23. Five of the 10 students said they already had decided on their fields of study should they receive entry to NUKMA: two said they would choose political science, while three mentioned computer science.

No one can say that having passed the preparatory curriculum these students will succeed, but Prof. Briukhovetsky says that rural students have a higher passing rate after finishing the courses than do students in general.

The college preparatory courses are only a small part of an ever-expanding, all-encompassing academic program at NUKMA, the oldest institution of higher learning in Ukraine, which continues unprecedented growth since its revival in 1992 after laying dormant for 175 years during Russian and then Soviet rule.

In the last several years, the university, which was founded in 1615 by Metropolitan Petro Mohyla, has developed a satellite in Mykolaiv. Another one in the city of Ostrih has now become an independent university.

The NUKMA also has developed a collegium system throughout the country, which is the renewal of a system that thrived in Ukraine during the 16th and 17th centuries. The system consists of a network of college preparatory schools that work closely with the NUKMA to assure they meet requirements set down by the NUKMA accreditation board. A computer network links the schools, located in all regions of Ukraine, including the cities of Cherkasy, Kherson, Donetske, Rohatyn, Ternopil, Kremen and Rivne. They also benefit from seminars and instruction provided by the NUKMA.

The university is developing foreign contacts as well. It already has developed a common program with the Lublin University Collegium in that Polish city. It is currently working with a prominent Ukrainian in Vienna, to develop a Mohyla Institute in that Austrian city. Prof. Briukhovetsky explained that, while he has held discussions with the vice-rector of Vienna University, a contract is yet to be signed. On the other side of Austria, in Salzburg, the NUKMA has agreed in general with Salzburg University to hold seminar courses, but certain legal aspects of the agreement need to be worked out between the schools.

The NUKMA, which for the most part has concentrated on developing its teaching institutions, has also made some inroads into research. After eight years of preparation, it will soon release an Encyclopedia of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, which the university president emphasized was financed more with money from Ukraine than the diaspora.

"This showed me that there is beginning to be a feeling of responsibility among our rich that they must support educational and cultural programs" underlined Prof. Briukhovetsky, adding that the encyclopedia would be available to the general public in the first half of 2001.

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