Ranked first in the country, but 1,542nd in the world by the Webometrics ranking of world universities, the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute is still the core state academic institution for technology specialists.
Vitaliy Pasichnyk teaches at the institute’s department of mechanics and machine building. He’s been working in KPI since 1993. Demand for his classes has fallen, giving way to computer and informational science.
Last year 240 students were accepted into the mechanics and machine building department. All the spots are funded by the state, meaning students don’t pay tuition and receive a monthly stipend.
Like many higher educational institutes, the first two years at the institute are spent taking general knowledge courses. Here students undergo broad studies in the Ukrainian language, geometry, physics and chemistry. Only in their third year do they specialize.
“In the IT industry salaries are much higher than those in machine building companies. Simply the return on investment in the IT sector comes faster,” Pasichnyk says.“Machine building, for instance, requires a lot of capital and a lot of time to receive profit. Demand for the profession in any field is based on salary levels; that’s why students tend to go into IT more.”
Oleksii Molchanovskyi has been teaching computer science at KPI since 2007. In September, he quit to focus full-time on technologically developing Ukrainian online educational courses at Prometheus.
“A huge number of applicants want to study at the faculty (of informatics and computer science), while at other faculties there is a shortfall this year,” Molchanovskyi says.
Around 400 spots, 80 percent of which are state-funded, are available in the informational and computer science department. But even with such availability, competition is very fierce.
“Many want to study programming, because they see that this industry has not been hurt by the (economic) crisis,” he says.
Aside from providing state-funded spots for study, KPI doesn’t much more state support.
The university earns money from tuition-paying students, hardly enough to keep equipment, software, furniture or buildings up-to-date. The majority of software used for teaching is pirated because it’s free. Thanks to partnerships with private companies, the university manages gets some new equipment and software for free. In return, companies get access to the students and offer internships and jobs. Some start working in their third year of studies.
Kyiv Post staff writer BozhenaSheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
