NAQA ANNUAL REPORT: 2019 Kyiv 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1 QUANTITATIVE INDICATORS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM IN UKRAINE ............................................................................................. 3 1.1. Number of Higher Education Institutions................................................................................................ 3 1.2. Distribution by Form of Ownership, Region, Type ................................................................................ 9 1.3. National Higher Education Institutions (Quantity, Distribution by Region and Type) ..... 11 1.4. Applicants for Higher Education ............................................................................................................... 14 1.5. Academic Scholarships ................................................................................................................................... 22 1.6. Internationalisation of Higher Education ............................................................................................. 23 1.7. Ukrainian Students Abroad .......................................................................................................................... 31 1.8. Higher Education Expenditures ................................................................................................................. 32 1.9. Defense of Doctoral and PhD Theses ........................................................................................................ 44 1.10. Expenses on Research Activity.................................................................................................................. 47 PART 2 INTERNAL HIGHER EDUCATION QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS ....................................................................................................... 51 2.1. Analysis of Parameters and Configurations of Internal Education Quality Assurance in Domestic Higher Education Institutions ............................................................................................... 51 2.2. Recommendations of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance on the Implementation of the internal quality assurance system ............................................................ 66 Part 3 EXTERNAL ASSURANCE OF HIGHER EDUCATION QUALITY AS AN ESSENTIAL FACTOR FOR ASSURANCE OF SUSTAINABLE INNOVATIONAL SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................................... 69 3.1. Launch and Performance of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance ................................................................................................................................................................................. 69 3.2. Accreditation of Educational Programmes according to “the new rules” ............................... 73 3.3. INTERNATIONALISATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN UKRAINE AS ONE OF THE NATIONAL AGENCY’S STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES ................................................................................ 82 3.4. Performance Results of the National Agency in 2019 with respect to Ensuring Academic Integrity and Ethical Academic Interaction in Higher Education and Research Institutions ......................................................................................................................................................... 87 3.5. Drafting a Procedure for the Annulment of Decisions of Specialized Academic Councils to Confer a Research Degree ............................................................................................................................ 90 Selected quantitative indicators of NAQA`s activity in 2019........................................ 93 Accreditation and communication .................................................................................................................... 93 Experts ........................................................................................................................................................................... 93 Division of experts by specialities....................................................................................................................... 94 Division of experts by region ................................................................................................................................ 98 Experts - Student Applicants ................................................................................................................................ 99 Financing of the National Agency and its Secretariat .............................................................................. 99 PART 1 QUANTITATIVE INDICATORS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM IN UKRAINE 1.1. Number of Higher Education Institutions Since the beginning of the last decade of the twentieth century, Ukraine and other post-Soviet states have witnessed not unexpected processes of “massification” and “popularsation” of higher education. While the developed countries of Western Europe and the United States passed a similar stage of development of university education with different success and at different rates in the middle or second half of the twentieth century, Ukraine, alongside other Eastern European countries, was forced to “experience” these processes more recently. Unfortunately, it was impossible just to apply the previous experiences and ready-made “patterns” of European systems to Ukraine’s realities because of certain specificities of individual countries (established values and practices, historical tradition, economic indicators etc.). However, developing a strategic vision of what quality higher education in Ukraine should be, and accordingly, establishing a path to this ambitious goal are tasks within the power of today’s post-Maidan and pro-European society. It should be noted that, according to many foreign experts22 (the experiences of Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Canada, and strange as it might seem Georgia, are the most valuable and most applicable to the current situation of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance), total and irreversible "massification" of higher education is always inversely dependent on the quality of higher education, results in a decrease in state funding for universities, and consequently, an increase in tuition fees for applicants to higher education. These are the consequences of the uncontrolled increase in the number of universities during the 1990s and 2000s which the entire system of higher education in Ukraine is facing today. On the other hand, despite some fundamental similarities, every system of higher education has characteristic national features, and therefore there is no universal way to solve problems that arise. In Ukraine, a significant decrease in higher education quality took place was accompanied by a rise in corruption, significant economic, political and geopolitical crises, the beginning of war for independence with the Russian Federation. However, here we need to make a small historical digression and return to the fact of increasing numbers higher education institutions accompanied by a demographic decline in the number of applicants for higher education - which of course had an impact on quality. Thus, in 1990-1991 in Ukraine, according to publicly available data of the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, there were only 149 higher education institutions (universities, academies, institutes), which enrolled 881,300 students. This number of higher education institutions and applicants for higher education were inherited by Ukraine at the beginning of its independence from the Soviet system of higher education which ceased to exist. Exactly ten years later, in 2000-2001, there were already twice as many higher education institutions — 315 universities, academies and institutes. There were also almost one and a half million students (1,402,900). Until 2010, the number of higher education institutions was constantly growing primarily due to an increase in the number of private institutions and to the expansion of the network of branches of both state and public institutions. The number was growing, despite a significant reduction in the number of school graduates and a general decline of the country's economy; at a time when the country was not able to finance such network of higher education institutions sufficiently. Another systemic problem was the impossibility of increasing the number of highly qualified teaching staff in the 2000s in accordance with the growing number of higher education institutions. Mass migration of school teachers to universities became widespread because higher education institutions lacked staff to conduct practical and laboratory classes, and sometimes even lectures. This wave marked the beginning of another important process — the “massification" of postgraduate education and a rapid increase in the number of defended theses, which were frankly speaking of low scientific quality – a fact that also impacted the overall state of higher education in Ukraine. As a result after 2010, people started talking about reducing or merging universities, institutes, and academies to a level that our society actually required, and most importantly, our economy could support. However, no real steps have yet been taken in this regard – for many reasons, including a lack of understanding of the mechanisms for closing or merging higher