Several years ago, awareness of business education in Ukraine was extremely low. “Just five years ago, most Ukrainians involved in business didn’t know the difference between an MBA, Masters of Business Administration, and the acronym NBA, National Basketball Association,” remembers Olena Belofastova, the director of Kyiv Business School.
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Though most Ukrainians are still clueless when it comes to business education, a growing number of ambitious businesspeople dream of enhancing their careers and incomes by earning a MBA, and many are living out their MBA dreams, either in Ukraine or abroad.
The demand for business education in Ukraine has been growing by between eight and 20 percent a year, and there are now more than 280 business education institutions in the country, according to data from the Ukrainian Association for Management Development and Business Education (UAMDBE).
The International Management Institute (IMI) pioneered business education in Ukraine. The country’s first 29 MBA students entered the IMI in 1990. Since that time, a number of strong business programs have entered the market, offering broad programs similar to those offered by Western business schools, and more specialized courses.
“IMI has historically offered strong programs for the banking sector, while the International Institute of Business (IIB), in my opinion, is one of the most diversified business schools in Ukraine: it offers specialized professional MBA programs as well as various short-term courses and seminars,” Belofastova said. “Kyiv Mohyla Business School (KMBS), on the contrary, is focusing on top managers and entrepreneurs who want to expand their knowledge,” she added.
Vadym Stegaylo, public relations manager of IIB, agrees that the country’s top business schools are aimed at different markets. IIB is now putting an increased focus on its EMBA program.
“The number of students in our EMBA program (a program tailored to the needs of busy professionals) grew over the last three years from 10 to 30 students,” Stegaylo said.
Since 2000, the Institute of International Business Relations (IBR), a private German business school, has been operating in Ukraine.
“The IBR MBA itself is unique, as it’s the first internationally recognized MBA degree offered by a business school with local representation in Ukraine,” said Andreas Kelling, director of IBR.
Students from many different countries and companies, and a variety of industries, are represented in the IBR MBA program. On average, Kelling said, an IBR MBA student has about five years of work experience, and is eager to compete with European colleagues.
Show me the money
As the number of Ukrainians interested in getting an MBA grows, so does the range of choices they have to make.
An MBA program at a Ukrainian institution costs from $2,000 to $5,000, for a Ukrainian-language program, or from $7,000 to $11,000 for an English-language program. But some Ukrainians prefer to study abroad, at U.S. or European business schools, where the tuition for an MBA program is double or triple this.
Before moving abroad, students have to figure out how they are going to pay for their education.
Ukrainian Natalie Best, investment manager at Western NIS Enterprise Fund, a U.S. government-funded private equity fund, received her MBA degree from the Fisher Business School at Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio, United States) in 1998.
She said that her MBA program cost $25,000 to $30,000 per year, excluding fees, textbooks and living expenses.
“When I was accepted to the MBA program I won a merit-based fellowship for the first year. In the second, I was awarded a ‘graduate assistantship,’ which means I was hired to teach undergraduate classes, and in exchange, my tuition was covered,” she recalls.
Olga Koval, former head of marketing department of KP Publications – the company which publishes the Kyiv Post – is currently in the first year of the MBA program at Winthrop University, located in Rock Hill, South Carolina, United States. Like Best, Koval found ways of funding her graduate education.
“The tuition fee was high, but I was able to get a scholarship and a graduate assistantship position at Winthrop,” Koval said. Graduate assistants work 20 hours a week, for which they receive free tuition and a monthly income.
In addition to the scholarship, she had to find a host family to live with.
“That was the only way for me to afford studying at Winthrop,” Koval said.
Voices from abroad
Best believes that the gap between the quality of business education in Ukraine and in the United States is huge.
“It seems the textbooks are the same, but the difference is in the caliber of professors,” she said, adding that Ukrainian school cannot afford the level of professors that U.S. business schools have.
Roman Vovk, a Ukrainian MBA student at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lausanne, Switzerland, said there is still a difference between the quality of Ukrainian and foreign programs, but, as Ukraine opens up to the international community and becomes more westernized, business education is becoming more western too.
“I earned an MSc (Master of Science) in Industrial Management from Lviv National Polytechnic University in 1997. In business subjects (marketing, management, finance, etc.), we used standard international books written by American and European authors,” he said.
However, business education is not just about the textbooks. A lot depends on the quality of professors, fellow students, and the school’s link with business.
“Professors at IMD (in Switzerland) are selected carefully and face rigorous competition, and they usually stay in close touch with top executives from such multinational corporations as Procter and Gamble, Unilever, Nestle and Philip Morris,” Vovk said.
“When the faculty at Ukrainian business schools is able to offer students this level of instruction, the quality of education will increase,” Vovk said.
The IMD curriculum includes work with case studies based on contemporary situations at real companies.
“Active teamwork, simulations of real business situations, and subsequent analysis and debugging provide valuable experience that is applicable in a real working environment,” he said.
Stegaylo is convinced that only business schools ready to engage in strategic dialogue with companies will succeed in Ukraine.
“In the nearest future (and we are already seeing this today) a client will require from a business school additional guarantees of quality, efficiency and confidence,” Stegaylo said. “Only trainers or professors that prove their statements with real research and experience interacting with business will survive.”
Koval said that one thing that sets American business programs apart from Ukrainian ones is that faculty in the U.S. conduct more research, and there are more research opportunities available to students. She added that she believes that U.S. business courses have more practical application than Ukrainian schools.
Additionally, Vovk said it is possible to gain valuable knowledge from classmates, many of whom have years of experience.
“Interaction among students brings together insiders’ knowledge of various industries and companies,” Vovk said.
Koval agrees. She added that entering an MBA program with previous work experience has helped her understand how what she learned can be applied to concrete situations.
Ambitious MBAs
Students are also keen to obtain an MBA abroad because it enhances their employment possibilities. As well as earning more, MBA graduates have more options open to them.
“Having the opportunity to find the internship [in the United States] after completing my MBA will give me more chances to receive a range of job offers upon my return to Ukraine,” Koval said.
It can be difficult to find a prestigious job in the United States or Europe without an MBA, but representatives of Ukrainian companies say they place more value on experience and professional background.
WNISEF’s Best said that everything depends on the position requirements.
To an employer, pure degree has much less value than the combination of degree and relevant experience.
“I usually reject candidates who have degree upon degree upon a training course etc., but lack the level of maturity that can be developed only by practical experience in the field,” Best said.
Olha Pankiv, a student in the MBA program of Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece, said that although earning an MBA is an overall good experience, there are a lot of pitfalls.
“The worst thing here, which should make everyone thinking about studying abroad think hard, is the attitude toward foreigners,” Pankiv said.
It has been seven months since she and other foreigners from her course applied for one year residence permits, and the papers are still not ready.
“In fact, I am officially here, according to Greece’s rules, but not according to EU rules, which means I cannot travel outside the country,” she said.
With Ukraine now sharing a border with the European Union, analysts say that it will be more and more important for Ukrainian MBA programs to be internationally recognized.
Foreign direct investment into Ukraine is expected to grow, and Ukrainian businesses will extend their contacts to the European Union.
“Therefore, Ukrainian managers that think about getting an MBA [in Ukraine] will have to consider the recognition of their MBA degree in the European Union. At the moment, the IBR MBA is the only choice in Kyiv and Odessa for candidates that don’t want to leave Ukraine,” Kelling said.
Many institutions do not have the financial and intellectual resources to offer quality MBA degrees.
“Clients suffer most of all. The fact that there’s a lot of choice does not mean that people are able to make the right decision. Moreover, the fact that many training and consulting services are of poor quality is bad for the reputation of the market as a whole,” IIB’s Stegaylo said.
Kelling added that “Ukrainian business schools will have to submit themselves to European educational legislation” in the future. “Local MBA programs will have to obtain accreditation, so that Ukrainian MBA degrees will be recognized and accepted in Europe.”
