Eugen Gruzdev, Ph. D. Alla
Gruzdeva*
Vienna University of Technology
* State Establishment "Dnepropetrovsk Medical Academy
Ministry of Health of Ukraine"
ACADEMIC
MOBILITY OF STUDENTS AND YOUNG SCIENTISTS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE NATIONAL
EDUCATION
“Upon the education of the
people of this
country, the fate of this country depends.”
Benjamin Disraeli
We want to begin this article with a famous quotation of
the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881). He proclaimed these
words during one of his numerous speeches more than 100 years ago, but this
thought is of current interest even today. The level of education of people in
the country has always affected its welfare and consequently its fate. Each
country has its own educational base and scientific power, even educational
systems of any two countries can be very different. But one thing does not
change – it is the science.
Nowadays science is developing rapidly and needs more and
more smart, talented scientists. It is possible to declare that science today
is not just a process of improving or/and elaborating some field of study by
one scientist, it is also a process of communication and connection between
them. To make communication possible, easier and faster young scientists and
even students are to go abroad for some time to gain some experience, to learn
about the latest techniques and advances, to introduce new people (other
colleagues), so in a word, to keep up with the times. It is the main idea of academic mobility!
Positive aspects of academic mobility (AM) are:
ü AM gives many opportunities for students to become more educated and
more intelligent in plenty of issues of theirs future works;
ü Also teachers could be more skilled in many points from how to plan the
lecture or practical class more interesting for students till how to use modern
technologies to ease the process of studying;
ü AM can develop the partnership between Ukraine and European Union (EU)
by means of destruction of cultural, language and political barriers.
ü Every student and every young scientist can represent Ukrainian culture
abroad, so that its history, cuisine and so on, can be popularized throughout
the world.
So, to our minds, academic mobility of students, teachers
and young scientists can bring so significant positive results, that they
completely overshadow all negative. Among negative aspects we can call:
o
AM opens the door for students and
young scientists to go abroad, it is dangerous because of so-called “brain
drain”;
o
AM can be very expensive for the
average Ukrainian and that could lead to the fact that mobility will not be
used by the best students, but by the richest.
In our opinion these negative items are the most important
and exactly they are building a barrier for many people in the decision – for
or against academic mobility. As we think, it is enough to compare pluses and
minuses of AM to be for it. Academic mobility gives many opportunities for our
young citizens to be highly educated, to show and prove themselves and to
develop science together with greatest scientists of our time on the basis of
original works of those to whom we owe for modern advances.
Unfortunately there are some internal problems in
Ukrainian education and politic that should be solved to ensure effective
academic mobility. That’s why we can determine following goals of Ukraine:
· improve teaching support of credit-modular system of educational
process;
· improve the legislative base of Ukraine for the quality assurance of
higher education, mobility of students, teachers, young researchers and
opportunity to pursue higher education and learn life-long;
· continue monitoring of teaching experiment in higher education to
identify, summarize and disseminate best practices; [1]
· Strengthening of foreign relations with the European Union, having the
ultimate goal of signing the association and membership in the EU;
·
Strengthening
of the Democracy;
· Ensuring of freedom and human rights;
· Fight corruption;
· Improve language and whole education system.
Here we want to stop your attention on the last point. It
is very important for all our citizens who want to travel abroad for studying
to know the language at a sufficient or high level.
To our minds, there are three main problems of development
of academic mobility in Ukraine:
Ø Unfair selection of students for exchange;
Ø Low level of language knowledge among students and teachers;
Ø Fail of subject studied abroad.
Therefore of the problems are to define the goals of each University
in Ukraine:
ü Selection of reliable partners abroad;
ü Ensure honest and transparent selection of students and young
scientists;
ü Improving the quality of education;
ü Ensure academic compliance of learning;
ü Introduction of new technologies and replacing of old equipment;
ü Develop a strategy of improving language education of teachers and
students;
Academic mobility is very popular
among students and young scientists nowadays. There are many organizations that
are designed to help people to travel abroad for studying. Among them are the
most prominent in Ukraine ERASMUS and LEONARDO da VINCI. Numbers of ERASMUS mobile students display a very strong growth; they more than doubled in the 11-year period from 1998/99 to 2008/09, to close to 200 000. However, ERASMUS students
still represent a very small share of total enrolment, of less than 1% on average in the Europe 32 region in 2008/09 on an annual basis (translating into about 4% when taking account of the
duration of studies). [2]
It is also sometimes possible for
smart students and young scientist to travel abroad for free. There are plenty
of propositions on the foreign education market. But it remains one problem in
this case – how to choose a reliable agency.
In conclusion we want to sum it all
up saying that academic mobility has more advantages than disadvantages. There
are still some problems of its developing in Ukraine but we believe that our
country will overcome them all and some day all our intellectual elite, including
students will have a free entrance to the world wide scientific organizations,
world richest libraries and best universities to gain there some new knowledge
and new experience for developing and strengthening of Ukraine. Academic
mobility is a great step forward European Union, to development and freedom.
Sources:
1.
Îñíîâí³
çàñàäè ðîçâèòêó âèùî¿ îñâ³òè Óêðà¿íè â êîíòåêñò³ Áîëîíñüêîãî ïðîöåñó. Äîêóìåíòè
³ ìàòåð³àëè. Òðàâåíü–ãðóäåíü 2004 ð. — ×. ²² / Óïîðÿäíèêè: Ì. Ô. Ñòåïêî, ß. ß.
Áîëþáàø, Â. Ä. Øèíêàðóê, Â. Â. Ãðóá³ÿíêî, ². ². Áàáèí — Òåðíîï³ëü: Âèä-âî ³ì.
Â. Ãíàòþêà, 2005. — Ñ. 188
2. Mapping mobility in European higher education. Volume I: overview and
trends – Ulrich Teichler, Irina Ferencz, Bernd Waechter, Laura Rumbley, Sandra
Buerger, with the collaboration of Ute Lanzendorf – Brussels, June 2011 /
Contract – 2009- 3287/001-001 ERA-SHEPDE, 263 pages