Volodymyr Groysman: Through quality of vocational education we can accelerate economic growth

Modernization of training programs, technical re-equipment of educational institutions will allow reforming the system of vocational education in Ukraine. This will improve the level of training of skilled staff and will contribute to accelerating economic growth of the country. This was started by the Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groisman while opening Worldskills Ukraine (the all-Ukrainian competition of professional skill) on Monday.

"We have to reform the system of vocational education that each who studies in this system has got professional and quality skills. For this we need to change training programs, modernize them, to provide an opportunity for technical re-equipment of institutions of vocational education," Volodymyr Groisman said.

The PM stressed that domestic education should keep up with the times in order to ensure the competitiveness of Ukrainian graduates.

"We should bring education standards up to a level when each young person who finishes a vocational institution can find themselves in the real sector of economy", he stressed.

The PM noted that 153,2 thousand skilled workers completed training in the 2015-2016 school year. Of them provided with work by profession - 137,6 thousand people, about 90% of the total number of graduates. At the same time there is a shortage of some specialties in the labor market.

In this context, the Prime Minister said that vocational education should be adequate to the challenges of the economy and to prepare a specialty that requires real sector of the economy. He also stressed that the country should move from a resource based economy.

"Ukraine should become a country where the added value is created, where you create a final product that can compete in the markets of other countries. In particular, we have to supply domestic market with own production. This means that Ukrainians will have a normal work, Ukraine will have normal production and we will have the development of the national economy," he said.

The Prime Minister noted that the reform of vocational education is one of the priorities of the Ministry of education and Government in general. 

The Head of Government recalled that this year, expenses on modernization of material-technical base of vocational training institutions of state ownership have been increased by 50 million UAH. Thus, students of vocational training institutions will have the opportunity to learn on cutting-edge technologies, will be trained and be able to work well on production.