State of Ukraine’s Educational Services.How attractive is it for Indian Students?

Education services form an integral part of today’s modern and globalized world. A society’s course of development may be decided by the state of educational services in the society. The educational services sector, which was initially open to only public institutions, has seen a change. With the increased globalization and introduction of good medium of communication, people have access to education institutions worldwide. Students not only benefit from the expertise developed by the educational institutions, but they also benefit by the wide cross section of classroom having students from different parts of the world. It helps students, develop and understand the view of different geographies. As we are moving towards rapid globalization in our business, there is an increase in more students going abroad for their higher education. The population explosion around the world has also triggered a process of continued expansion and liberalization in this sector. With more and more students demanding educational services the government has had to open up the sector for both domestic and foreign private investors. Educational services are also enlisted under General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS). However, ironically, not withstanding the importance of this sector it remains one of the least committed sectors under GATS. There are many factors that inhibit trade between countries in this sector. A few big factors are quality assurance, policy control, accreditations standardization and other country specific issues. Despite, barriers, students cross the border and seek admissions in foreign universities. China, India, Korea are sending large number of students mostly to Western universities. Almost 200,000 Indian students went abroad for higher education in the year 2012. Major destinations are US, UK and Canada. However recently the rules for immigration to these countries have been made more stringent. Consequently, this group of internationally mobile students has had to look at other destinations for higher studies. Ukraine has emerged as a major hub for higher education along with China and other European countries. In the year 2012 Ukraine had almost 40,000 international students. Moreover of these 40,000 students almost 2,500 students were from India. These figures show the growing trend of Indian students going to Ukraine for higher studies. Ukraine, with over 100 higher education institutions, produces the world’s fourth largest number of academic graduates. The Ukrainian universities are some of the oldest in the world and therefore have rich history and international level infrastructure. Furthermore, the degrees of Ukrainian universities are internationally recognized. On the other hand, India has the most number of students studying abroad after China. It goes without saying that there is a lot achieve through mutual cooperation between India and Ukraine.