Report on the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy assessment from the city development perspective
On 30th March
2013, survey was conducted among Social Sciences students in a group of 10
people in NaUKMA. The purpose of survey was to collect information concerning
students’ attitude towards the university they study in. The research method
applied for data collecting was questionnaire based on multiple choice and
open-ended questions. The data received in a survey was coded in a table presented
below.
The table illustrates
reflections of Social Sciences students about the role of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
in Kyiv development. The first question fixed students’ attitude towards the
necessity of a high-rated university in a prosperous city. The next one asked
to put on a scale the level of satisfaction of NaUKMA, where 1 meant
“absolutely unsatisfied”, 5 meant “neutral”, and 10 meant “absolutely
satisfied”. The last column in a table provides information about the features
in university maintaining that need improvement.
To start with, the information
collected in a survey was based on an assumption that every student answering questions
concerning role of the university in prosperous city image and level of
development of their own university makes his choice based on knowledge about
top universities in the world. And so, the students’ responses can be reflected
as self-esteem of Ukrainian universities’ position on a global scale. In fact,
as can be seen from the table, despite the fact that vast majority of
respondents agreed that high-rated university is the vital part of a prosperous
city, one third of students found it hard to find connection between existence
of a top university and success of a city. Thus, the mission of developing
university is not connected with the city maintaining. Moreover, this outlook
is relevant in Ukrainian perspective. In particular, “General Kyiv Plan” states
that everything city administration is going to do with the university till the
year 2025 is to increase number of private universities and to stabilize number
of students studying (46). And so, the city development perspective for the Kyiv-Mohyla
Academy is applicable as providing appropriate environment for university
maintaining.
Within the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,
students’ answers indicated sufficient level of their satisfaction, as only 20%
of the respondents put their mark on a negative side of the scale.
Nevertheless, the attitude towards NaUKMA as an educational institution cannot
be characterized by delight, as the half of respondents put their positive
marks closer to the neutral point on the scale (points 7 and 8 on a table). And
so, the recommendations students have done in the survey can be interpreted as the
ways of university development as an independent institution of the city.
According to the data in the last column of
the table, the highest level of students’ concern is connected with
organization of study process and the opportunity to find the job. Moreover,
two students indicated the spatial enlargement and problem with freedom of
choice as a current problem of students’ activity inside the university.
However, most of the problems indicated above can be interpreted as local for a
particular specialization study process. Table 1 shows that Political Science
students are preoccupied with freedom of choice in subjects they study. In
fact, students of Organization Management and Administration in Public Health
in their answers emphasized on bureaucracy inside the university that
complicates study process in the Kyiv-Mohyla academy. Finally, students
studying Sociology stressed on the necessity of university territory
enlargement and modernization of auditoriums. Nevertheless, issues like quality
of study process and absence of an opportunity to work on a specialization is
universal among all specializations in Social Sciences faculty.
In order to sum up, the
analysis of survey results shows that the city perspective provides for the
university environment for the development, so the task for the Kyiv
administration is to create comfortable surroundings for the Kyiv-Mohyla
Academy maintaining. In fact, at present moment the level of university
functioning is estimated by Social Science students as satisfactory. However,
plenty of a university problems were indicated be the students. In particular,
representatives of three different specializations fixed three major dimensions
of university functioning: freedom of choice, spatial limitations, and
bureaucracy. In total, Social Sciences students found complication in study
process and combining work with study. In general, the survey demonstrates that
the dialogue between students and university administration should be provided
in order to create comfortable atmosphere inside the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Moreover, Kyiv administration should not interrupt the study process due to the
necessity of independence for increasing the level of universities’
development.
References:
General Kyiv Plan. Basic
Theses. Kyiv City State Administration, 2011. 107 pages. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.
Available at: http://kiev4you.org/gif/genplan2025.pdf
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