You're reading: Foreign education offers good career chances, but challenges remain

The Doing Business in English 2014 British Education Fair showed off the career opportunities for those who dare to get a prestigious foreign diploma in order to achieve higher positions in Ukraine.

The event took place in Kyiv’s Hyatt Regency
hotel on Oct. 18 with Business Link as
the main organizer and Kyiv Post as a partner. 

Special focus was placed on Ukrainian post-secondary
students and their chances for further study in the United Kingdom.

The 7th annual Donig Business in English fair showed no signs of waning interest, as each of the dozen seminars was full and the school representatives, who flew in from the UK for the occasion, were constantly engaged until the end. Opened by the British ambassador in Ukraine Simon Smith and Business Link director Tatyana Samborskaya, the main goal of the exhibition was to increase the number of students receiving education in British post-secondary institutions.

“At a time when Ukraine has solidly made the European choice,” said Samborskaya, “our people need to speak with the Europeans in a common tongue, and that means learning in their institutions of higher education.”

According to Business Link, the UK receives
among the fewest Ukrainian students who travel abroad to further their
education.

The types of academies represented were diverse,
including language schools, institutions offering preparatory courses and
universities proper, such as University of Glasgow and Coventry University.
Their representatives, assisted by the numerous employees of Business Link,
were bombarded with questions from prospective students and parents of students
alike. Most were interested in how to get into British schools and how to pay
for it, since the UK is one of the most expensive countries in Europe in which
to study.

Recent graduates were on hand to discuss their
experience of enrolling, learning, and finding a career after leaving
university, whether in Ukraine or abroad. Meanwhile, chief editor of the Kyiv
Post Brian Bonner led a special seminar for local journalists on the challenges
faced by independent media in the post-Soviet era.

Within the framework of the exhibition the
conference European Education for a New Ukraine was held, which brought
together government representatives, company executives and civic activists,
who had graduated from UK universities, most notably Cambridge and Oxford. The
moderated discussions focused on the relevance and applicability of British,
and other foreign, education in the Ukrainian reality, especially at a time of
fundamental pivot to European path.

First vice general director of the state postal
service Ukrposhta Roman Stasiv and vice chairman of the state energy monopolist
Naftogaz Serhiy Konovets, both with diplomas from the UK, spoke about the
difficulties they encounter when working with the established,
less-than-cooperative bureaucracy they find. Co-panelist Inna Sovsun, the first
deputy education minister, talked about the progress her ministry if finally making
in the areas of recognizing foreign diplomas and bringing the Ukrainian
education system more in line with European standards. However, she opined that
as yet no programs have been set up to get ambitious young Ukrainians into
British universities. Even so, “Ukrainians with education abroad can be
essential in rebuilding Ukraine,” she said.

At the conference was a discussion of the
Professional Government movement, an initiative of graduates of American and
European universities to lend their services to the nation, including the
government and political parties. Movement participants hold degrees from Cambridge
University, business school INSEAD, and the London School of Economics.