What place does the college occupy in American education system? What should Ukraine learn in the reform process? One of the delegation participants, Head of Lviv Automobile and Road College of Lviv Polytechnic National University Mykhailo Brehin spoke about this with the IA ZIK correspondent.
– Mr. Brehin, you have recently been with a delegation of college administrators in the United States. What can and should Ukrainian education borrow from the USA?
– For five weeks, a delegation of Ukrainian college administrators (16 people) at the invitation of the United States Department of State participated in the Community College Administrator Program (ССАР-2018). College administrators got acquainted with the work of Florida Community Colleges – from the history of their development and formation to their role and place in the modern education system, their impact on the development of the economy and the standard of living of a particular territorial community, state and the whole country.
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– Mr. Brehin, what are the first tasks Ukrainian education has to complete according to the survey results of the American experience?
– It is necessary to adopt the Law on Professional Education in accordance with the Law of Ukraine on Education, to conduct an analysis of the network of professional and technical colleges concerning the possibility and accessibility to obtain complete secondary education of professional direction and a corresponding qualification of a qualified worker, junior specialist and bachelor’s degree.
This requires consistency and changes at the legislative, regulatory and financial levels, business and employers engagement with the training of the necessary specialists, the diversification of funding resources on the state, regional and local levels, funding of natural and juridical persons as well as the implementation of the voucher system.
We need to implement a system of grant management, scholarships and other financial support to college students. For further socio-economic development of Ukraine, it is necessary to support the activities of colleges (technical schools) through the transfer of educational programs, creation, expansion and increase of the efficient activity of educational scientific-industrial complexes.
It is necessary to radically improve the cooperation of the education system and the motivation of employers and business, including the system of tax incentives for donors in education, forecasting the future needs for specialist training, in particular, creating new specialties, necessary conditions for training organization, developing teaching methodical and practical bases, implementing the dual education system, etc.