Volodymyr Smolanka: "UzhNU has made a huge leap in rankings this year"

“UzhNU is competeng for students with European universities”

- I guess we’d better start our conversation with the question about UzhNU freshers.

 - Let me begin with quantitative indicators. The total number of students admitted to the first year year of study makes up more than two thousand.  More than a thousand were admitted to budget funded places, and, respectively, more than a thousand will pay tuition from individual funds of the funds of legal entities.  

As to the total number of newly admitted students I can not announce the final figures yet since the entrance campaign to Master’s courses in 4 proffessions is still going on. Nevertheless we will have about 2 thousand students in educational-proficiency levels "Specialist" and "Master". The total number of students who have joined Uzhhorod National University this year is approximately 4150 people not including foreigners.

- How many of them are expected to arrive in Uzhhorod this year?

- We expect about 140, maybe 150 students. We set the goal to admit foreign students not only to the speciality “General medicine”, which is of course the most popular among foreigners, but also to other specialities, and if last year's entrants from Europe, Asia and Africa entered the speciality "General Medicine", this year they are going to study dentistry, international economics and engineering. This is a positive trend, which we will certainly continue to support.

- Can you briefly analyze this year’s admission campaign? Were there any problems, difficulties? What were the special features of this year's campaign?

- In general, the campaign was not easy. We carefully analyzed all its features, because, according to the results, one can predict what to expect in the coming years, and adjust the objectives and the university development strategy. I have singled out three key features of the admission campaign 2015.

Firstly, we continue to observe the effects of bad demographic situation of the late 1990-ies - early 2000-s. This year we admitted mostly students born in 1998. Accordingly, in a year we will admit the children born in 1999. The number of applicants will be even smaller than this year. In 2017 the number of school leavers will continue to decline, in 2018 it will be about the same as in 2017. Only in 2019 the number of school leavers will slightly increase, but will not reach the level of 2015. We will have as many applicants as this year only in 2020. Nevertheless, the number will be smaller than in 2014, 2013 or 2012 respectively.

Secondly, this year’s trend is that physicomathematical branches of science are less popular among applicants. Such a trend can be observed not only at UzhNU. This is a nationwide trend, the Minister of Education Serhiy Kvit has mentioned about. One of the reasons is that this year's school leavers showed significantly worse level of knowledge judging by the results of external independent testing.

 - If I am not mistaken, Transcarpathian school leavers demonstrated the worst results in Ukraine in general. I heard that some of them didn’t even try to apply to UzhNU or other Ukrainian universities, they applied directrly to Polish universities. Maybe it's good, why would you admit weak students ...

-  Of course, every university wants to have the best, the smartest students. For example, grade point average of UzhNU first-year students is 9.66. This is a very good GPA.

Polish universities which you have already mentioned are the third feature of this year's admission campaign. The internet is full of announcements: "If you haven’t passed external independent testing come to study in Poland". Walk around Uzhhorod and you’ll see a lot of such billboards. Many universities of the neighboring countries promise financial benefits to Ukrainian school leavers, and some universities even offer tuition free study and admit students on the basis of interviews, e.g. colleges in Slovakia.

Nowadays the competition is very high and UzhNU is competing not only with Ukrainian universities but also with foreign ones which are also fighting for students. Therefore, we must progress, open new educational programmes for students and create better conditions to make even the applicants who have never been in Uzhgorod come and study here.

-  Why is there such a large number of first year students from Lviv region?

- Yes, you are right. School leavers from the Lviv region make up more than 9% of all freshers, the same number of first year students are from other regions of Ukraine. This is very good, because now we are positioning UzhNU not as a regional Transcarpathian university, but as a university for the whole Ukraine as well as an international institution.

We have done a great job the result of which can already be seen: 19 new specialities have been licensed for one year. It is important that UzhNU could admit students to all new specialities on tuition free basis. Moreover, all new areas were very popular. We managed to fill up budget funded study places allocated to the university; moreover, we have admitted many students on a contract basis. Today it is obvious that we should open more new popular courses, we must feel the pulse of life. Only then our university will be successful.

"The next step is the entry of UzhNU to international rankings"

In the context of success of the educational institution it is important to speak about the ranking of universities - continues Volodymyr Smolanka. - This year we have been allocated a large volume of budget-funded study places, which incidentally have been filled up. The Ministry emphasizes that large amounts of budget-funded placed will be allocated only to the best universities. This year we are the 10^th among all national universities by the number of budget funded places. Here's the answer how Uzhhorod National University is being positioned in Ukraine nowadays.

 In fact, the position of our university in the ranking of universities is very important today. Our team has worked very well and this year UzhNU has made a huge leap in the rankings. Let’s consider the most significant consolidated ranking of Ukrainian universities. It was established in 2008, is compiled annually on the basis of the results of the previous academic year and published in late June - early July. Since the establishment of the ranking UzhNU has not climbed higher than the 40^th position. In 2014 it shared 41-43^rd positions, and in 2015 we climbed to the 30-31^st position. This has been done only for one year of our work!

Let me, for example, tell about the Webometrics ranking which determines the rank of the university analyzing its presence in the Internet and this is an indirect indicator of the importance and influence of the university. Webometrics evaluates university activity on the basis of the volume, visibility and importance of Internet resources of the university. The more high quality publications are available on the University websites and the more users around the world refer to this information online, the stronger the position of a particular university in the world is.  We have jumped from the 127^th to the 26^th position among Ukrainian universities in the Webometrics ranking for the last academic year. Let’s have a look at the transparency ranking of universities, which defines university openness in administrative and financial activities. UzhNU climbed up from the 42^nd to the 18^th position in this ranking. I would like to note that all these rankings use quantitative and qualitative indicators, therefore it’s impossible to influence their formation by making a phone call (as it was done before)!  We learn about our results from the information resources together with our readers, therefore their objectiveness is unquastionable.

I pay so much attention to rankings as they are the indicator of success or popularity, which reflects the importance or influence of a particular university. Our potential students seek for the information about educational institution on the Internet and in other media and based on it take their decision whether the university is worth applying to. Our current positions suggest that our university is very dynamic. The goal we are setting is to accelerate the development. Our next step is to join international rankings. UzhNU is not there yet.

- How is it possible to get to these rankings? 

- It’s very easy. In order to participate in international rankings, UzhNU has to become a member of various associations of universities. We have already submitted documents and UzhNU has been invited to join the Conference of Rectors of the Danube Region. In early October I’m going to Maribor, Slovenia, where university Rectors will decide by means of voting if UzhNU should be granted membership in this association. UzhNU is already on its way to the European Association of Universities. In order to become its member we have to get three references from foreign universities. We have already managed to garner such support. So, the day when Uzhhorod National University appears in international rankings is not far off.  I would like to emphasize that conditions of membership in the European Association of Universities determine that a lot of administrative and financial information about the university must be provided. Therefore, entering international rankings and joining the association means the increase of our transparency and is an incentive to improve management efficiency, which from now on will become the object of international monitoring.

- Thank you for the interview.

- Thank you.

The interviewer is Yaroslav Svitlyk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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