Ukrainian Education Minister Dmitriy Tabachnyk has criticized the country's higher education system, saying that the number of universities in Ukraine should be decreased.
"Ukraine... cannot afford more than 900 universities. This is not Tabachnik's whim, this is a presentiment of Armageddon in the higher education," the minister said, speaking on Saturday during a round table in the southern Ukrainian city of Simferopol.
Ukraine, home to 45 million people, has "more universities than Italy, France, Germany, Poland and Belgium combined," while more than 250 million people live in these countries, Tabachnik said.
Almost 2.5 million students study in more than 1000 universities in Ukraine, the majority of which are state-run.
Small universities, the minister said, should unite into bigger ones, which is stipulated in the country's draft education law. "A shop selling educational services to several hundred students cannot be called a university," he added.
SIMFEROPOL, January 30 (RIA Novosti)
