While the paper work is still humming in education institutions, ForUm has decided to learn about what professions school graduates dream of and whether their choice meet the state order.
Thirst for knowledge
Certain tendency of priorities was already formed during the admission campaign. Interestingly, professions applicants have chosen do not meet the objectives of the state order, approved for this year. In fact, applicants have preferred those professions in respect of which the state order has been reduced.
The biggest number of applications has been submitted to such faculties as philology, legal studies, finances and credit, management, corporate economics. Such results, however, were expected. At the beginning of the admission campaign education minister Dmytro Tabachnyk already spoke about preliminary figures and informed that for that moment there had been submitted 30 000 applications to the legal studies faculty, 24 000 - to finance and credit, 24 700 - to management, 19 393 - to economics and entrepreneurship, more than 18 000 - to accounting and audit.
At the same time, considering the situation on the labour market, the Education Ministry has reduced the state order for such specializations as "Law", "Management and administrating", "Economics and entrepreneurship", but enlarged the scope of admission to mathematics and natural sciences and engineering.
Psychologists note that prestige of a profession is the strongest argument for applicants and their parents. According to Oksana Bryk, psychologist and professor of social sciences and technologies in Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, school graduates and their parents follow the question "Where else can I earn good money?", and in this respect natural sciences obviously compare poor to law and economics.
"We do have private business in the country, and this market takes a certain part of lawyers and economists," the expert says, but adds that there are cases when such specialists often have to take any job they can find, like a security guard, for example.
In turn, educational institutions agree with the state order and admit that mathematics and natural sciences are not popular among applicants. "The state order has been enlarged for natural sciences faculties, as there is a certain problem with professional training of specialists on math, physics, biology and chemistry. Without these specialists the Ukrainian science cannot make any progress," rector of the Kyiv Shevchenko's University Leonid Huberski points out. Chemical engineering, for example, is among the top-10 of the least popular professions this year.
In total, the size of the state order has been reduced by 4.4 thousand specialists comparing to the last year. The relevant Ministry explains that this year school graduates are less in number by 20 000 students comparing to 2012.
"The list of students for specialist degree include 55 thousand applicants, for master degree - 30 thousand applicants. The total number of applicants for specialist and master degree programs makes 85% of the bachelor’s degree students of 2013," the department of higher education of the Education Ministry informs.
In total, there have been submitted 2 million 172 thousand applications from 695 thousand 700 school graduates countrywide. In particular, 345 thousand 300 applications have been submitted to educational institutions of I-II level of accreditation and 1 million 826 thousand 700 applications - to institutions of III-IV level.
Final accord
Though the names of first-grade students were known already on August 11, the Ministry cannot announce the exact number. According to the decree on admission, educational institutions must have provide data on budget-financed students within ten days since the date of admission. Thus, the final figures will be know on August 21.
However, as ForUm has learned from Mykola Fomenko, deputy director of the department on higher education of the Education Ministry, some data on admitted students is already available. "According to the data of the single state database on education, the list of students for junior specialist program include 96 thousand 57 people (including 91 thousand 400 state-financed students); for bachelor's degree program - 120 thousand 45 people (102 thousand 529 state-financed students); for master's degree program - 43 thousand 924 people (29 thousand 22 state-financed students). Moreover, the list of bachelor's degree holders, who have applied for master's degree program includes 69 thousand 705 students (including 46 thousand 924 state-financed students)," Fomenko specified. The figures, however, may change as the processing and verification of admission orders continue.
Moreover, the admission campaign is not over yet, and those applicants who have failed to join state-subsidised programs can try to enter a university on a fee-paying basis. The admission campaign for contract-based education lasts till August 25.
Tetyana Matsur
