IAPM PROVIDES ITS STUDENTS WITH EDUCATION OF INTERNATIONAL LEVEL
As is known, the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management represents an educational establishment of European level. The Academy is well known and respected in many countries, and young people from all over the world dream of studying here. So, Ihor Slavovych Pilayev, Academy’s Provost for International Relations, Director General of its International Open University, Doctor of Political Science, and Candidate of Economics, profiled the IAPM’s educational services designed for foreigners, in Ukraine and abroad.
1. What does the IAPM’s International Open University represent?
The IAPM’s International Open University is an organization department deals with development of international cooperation, international links of the Academy and satisfaction of educational needs and requirements of foreign citizens, including those related to training of skilled specialists in various areas: social, economic, legal and other.
2. From what countries do people come to study?
We teach students from 35 foreign countries. They arrive from all regions of the world, especially numerous are those from the People’s Republic of China, Turkey, Iran, North Africa, Middle East, many students are from CIS countries, i.e., from Russia, Moldova, Belarus. The Academy has students from all Caucasian countries – Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia, Central Asian countries and even from remote Latin American countries, such as Ecuador and Peru.
3. So, what attracts foreign students in the Academy?
It is particularly important that the Academy develops innovation projects pertinent to provision of educational services abroad through its centers and branches set up in 11 countries of the world. To date, we have 15 such active branches and centers. For example, these are the centers in some countries of the European Union: in Poland, Czech Republic, and Bulgaria. In particular, we have in Bulgaria three open education training-and-consulting centers. It is of crucial importance that our open education centers specialize in teaching based on the Ukrainian educational standards, that is according to European standards, since in 2005 Ukraine joined the Bologna Convention, which provides for mutual recognition of credentials. In particular, we specialize in the Czech Republic in training labor migrants from Ukraine and other CIS countries, where students from Western Ukraine are especially numerous. It is important to note that most lectures are delivered in Ukrainian, and in such a way, the Academy continues the traditions of Ukrainian education in Prague and in the Central European region in general. I mean the celebrated Ukrainian Open University in Prague active as far back as in the period between two world wars. Those graduated from our centers speak very positively about their grounding. There have been no complaints as to recognition of our credentials in Europe. I would also like to add that this year late June the Lodz open education training-and consulting center, Poland, came in a good sixth among the higher education institutions operating in the Polish territory having outstripped even a number of leading Polish public higher education establishments. This goes to prove that the Ukrainian school abroad has big potential and that our educational standards and experience in the field of higher education are in good demand and held in respect abroad, including in EU countries.
As regarding our centers abroad, we have two of them in Russia, one of which specializing exactly in providing higher education and professional development for representatives of the Ukrainian expat community in Siberia. These are the regions, where experts in the oil and gas industries from Ukraine work now and worked as early as at the Soviet times. There, the IAPM’s Siberian representative office was established in 2003 on the base of the Ukrainian Center for Business and Cultural Cooperation in the city of Novy Urengoy. It continues to successfully function to date. In addition, we have an open education training-and-consulting center in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, where both Ukrainians and Russians are studying, and mainly marine professions.
4. Does the IAPM now open new centers abroad?
This year, the Academy opened three new centers abroad. Thus, having concluded a contract with the Azerbaijan Economic University, one of the leading higher education establishments of this country, we opened a center in Azerbaijan. An IAPM’s open education center came into being also in Bulgaria, in the city of Varna, as part of one of the chairs of the Varna University. We recently entered into a set of agreements with the Moscow Institute of Business and Politics providing for establishment of an IAPM’s training-and-consulting center in Moscow. So, we are working in this direction and do not stop at what has been accomplished.
5. You are most like planning to further expand the sphere of educational services, aren’t you?
Our plans for this academic year include development of many projects, for example, with the German partners from the European Association of Training and Education in Berlin. The Academy intends to jointly develop there grants of the European Union and open a training-and-consulting center. Furthermore, now we are actively working with our partners in Iraqi Kurdistan. This is an autonomy within the bounds of the Republic of Iraq – the Kurdistan Region officially recognized by the international community. There is also a big need for receiving educational services based on the European standards. Many specialists in this region got their education in the Soviet Union therefore, they appreciate our Ukrainian educational standards, in particular those ensured in Kyiv, Ukraine. It also planned to open a training-and-consulting center as part of a modern computer-linguistic school equipped in conformity with the up-to-date standards.
It is further planned to set up a special studio, where we will be able to broadcast, via satellite television, lectures, consultations of our Ukrainian instructors from Kyiv to our foreign centers. This is an innovative form of training enabling to efficiently combine extramural and distance education. Certainly, we actively introduce achievements of Internet, communication technologies. Thus, the Academy has within its structure a TV University, i.e., we launched a system of studios, through which the training process occurs on-line. Professors, experienced instructors of the Academy deliver lectures live and can communicate with their students situated in numerous branches and divisions throughout Ukraine.
6. Who teaches at the IAPM’s foreign branches?
The Academy adheres to the high standards approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine; the training process is maintained in line with the licensed specialties. We engage instructors from the IAPM, and invite other Ukrainian instructors to deliver lectures at our foreign centers, grade exams; of course, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine approve the chairs of the State Examination Boards. However, local instructors are actively engaged too – they also read lectures to the students of these centers in accordance with the educational programs and courses approved by the MES of Ukraine. We have always taken account of the specifics of a given region. For example, in the Czech Republic, where many labor migrants study at our center, we closely cooperate with the Czech Ministry of Education. Nevertheless, there are countries where cooperation based on contracts on establishment of open education centers is in common practice. In other cases, we work based on horizontal contracts with our partners, especially in EU countries with their highly developed legal system.
7. What support does the Academy lend to its students in Kyiv? What exactly is offered to young people who come with a view to study at the IAPM?
Students from various countries of the world come every year to the IAPM in order to study first at the International Preparatory Institute. This year, the Academy has already enrolled around 200 foreigners. We receive them here with traditional hospitality. First, the students are offered to take a 10-month course in Russian and Ukrainian, as well as a discipline in conformity with the standards established by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine – depending on the specialty they chose. The Academy’s staff realize that those arrived to our country to study need not only organization of the appropriate training process – they also need ordinary human attention and understanding. That is precisely why the staff of our establishment treats each student with a lot of attention and with all responsibility. Our instructors have enough experience to simplify for the foreign students the so-called “acclimatization.” Here, at the IAPM, an atmosphere of comfort and kindness is created around the students, because the Academy will become for these young people a home away from home in the coming 5 years.