Assessment of national economy competitiveness through the prism of Ukrainian education development

Abstract

The article analyzes the impact of educational factors on the national economy competitiveness. It has been researched Ukraine's place in the international rankings dealing with the global competitiveness index, human development, knowledge economy, innovation development etc. It has been established that educational potential is highly appreciated by the international community. The fact that it has been carried out only a quantitative, but not qualitative analysis of the educational market and human capital assets in different countries is considered to be a significant disadvantage of international rankings taking into account the educational component. Among the main obstacles of educational services development in Ukraine are demographic (negative natural growth, insufficient number of applicants, significant migration), economic (significant reduction in real incomes, low profitability of investment in higher education, high unemployment rate and inflation) and others. The problems that remain unresolved from the time when Ukraine gained its independence are the gap between business demand and educated specialists supply, inefficient use of public funds, lack of motivation for staff development and improvement of their skills, high level of corruption and so on. There is an increased tendency among the population to get education abroad. The government initiated a series of reforms covering systems of primary, secondary and higher education to overcome the negative effects on education and its transformation into a key factor for future economic growth in 2014. These reforms, in our opinion, are somehow a "shock therapy", a part of social experiment with elements that are not well thought out. In the short and medium term, it will definitely lead to increased unemployment, reduced incomes of population and crisis deepening. In the long run, it can have such positive results as reducing public expenditure into the education market on the condition of the reduction of corruption and overcoming of other negative phenomena of systemic crisis. In our opinion, these reforms cannot provide qualitative training improvement of a specialist, publishing activity of teachers and scientists conducting scientific researches, etc.