After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the newly independent states entered a transitional period to the market economy. Ukraine was one of the first States to declare its independence, in August of 1991, and to initiate autonomous political, social and economic processes. Consequently, the legal and institutional framework has been effectively revised, mainly by privatizing State property and introducing new players in the process.
As part of overall reform, the entire educational system has been recently revised and new courses introduced. The goal is to reduce previous total State control over curricula preparation and revision by stimulating the involvement of new stakeholders in the process. Furthermore, this new legislation encourages autonomy of the educational institutions as it starts to promote self-management and financing within the schools.
Forestry education, which was previously fully managed and financed by the State authorities, has been included in the process of innovation. New study courses have been added to the traditional programs, which were previously available only at a few higher education institutions and technical schools. As part of the curricula revision process, there is a willingness to create a more flexible educational system that would involve additional stakeholders in addition to academic members.
The need to review curricula in Ukraine became the main focus of some international projects. The objective was to support the establishment of new study courses, to be held at key institutions. Nevertheless, any revision is strongly conditioned by the existing institutional frame and by the financial and human resources available. The low level of public and private investment in education, combined with a rigid hierarchical management structure and financial constraints are not favouring the reform process and is even reducing the demand for innovation among teaching and research personnel. This is why the entire process is still just at the beginning and its effectiveness will be measured by whether or not these obstacles can be overcome.
The following paper, by providing a comprehensive picture of the existing situation in the forestry sector in Ukraine, focuses on the most relevant aspects of recent educational reform, including an analysis of the new study courses and the reasons supporting curricula revision. In addition, the international projects aimed at developing a new educational framework are reviewed.
Some guidelines on how to effectively intervene are also offered in the final part of the paper.
