Yevhen Sulima, First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, visited the British Council in Kyiv on September 19th to discuss future collaboration in Higher Education and English between the UK and Ukraine.
The meeting agreed that tackling the level of English in selected universities should be a top priority for collaboration. A scoping exercise will be undertaken to determine baseline needs and work out a model for improving the levels of English amongst teaching staff and students in a group of national technical universities.
Developing academic links in the field of unconventional gas was also discussed, following a delegation of academics from 4 universities to the UK last June. The parties will work towards a programme developing stronger ties between universities in the two countries working in this field.
The meeting also discussed the building of successful and mutually beneficial relationships between higher education establishments of both countries and sharing expertise and knowledge between them.
As a result, Martin Dowle, the director of British Council Ukraine, noted: "We have worked with Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine closely for many years, but today we have reached an understanding on how we can make this cooperation much more effective. We have agreed, that we will study how we can raise level of English in the University sector and strengthen links between British and Ukrainian universities”