The Ministry of Economy of Ukraine has approved the composition of the Supervisory Board of the Poltava Vocational Education Centre of the State Employment Service. The board includes representatives of local business, government and the employment service.

“As part of the reform of vocational education centres, we have started setting up supervisory boards of the centres, which we invited businesses to join. In this way, we engage entrepreneurs in active cooperation with education centres and offer them direct influence on the training of the specialists they need right now. Businesses will be able to order training for the specialists they need, adjust curricula, engage course participants in their companies at the training stage, and contribute to the development of vocational education centres and their capacity,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine.

“When creating supervisory boards, we were guided by the best international practices. In particular, similar supervisory boards exist in Germany, where the government works closely with business and pays great attention to building a dialogue between the state, trade unions and employers. Employers are the ones who are most affected by the staff shortage and understand best what kind of employees they need. That is why they should be able to directly influence the modernisation of vocational education centres and the training of those specialists who are most needed by the labour market,” said Deputy Minister Tetiana Berezhna.

“The establishment of supervisory boards at vocational education centres of the State Employment Service is an important step in the reform that allows direct integration of real business needs into the vocational education system. This is one of the solutions to overcome structural unemployment, and in the future, it will ensure a strong influence of business on the training of personnel in the centres. The involvement of local business leaders and large companies creates effective cooperation between employers and educational institutions, as it enables them to train specialists to meet the needs of enterprises. We implement the principle: ‘Business requests, we implement’. And it works. 86% of centres’ students have already been employed, and enterprises are provided with staff,” said Yuliia Zhovtiak, Director of the State Employment Service.

The first supervisory board of a vocational education centre was set up at the Poltava Vocational Education Centre. It includes five business representatives, including Nova Poshta, the construction company “Combine of Production Enterprises”, Vorskla-Moda garment factory, Poltava Automobile Aggregate Plant, and Vygidna Pokupka LLC (Aurora multimarket chain). The supervisory board also includes a representative of the Poltava Chamber of Commerce and Industry, one representative each from the regional employment centre, the departments of education and science and economic development, trade and investment attraction of the Poltava Regional State Administration.

The powers of the Supervisory Board of the vocational education centre include:

• participation in determining the centre’s development strategy;
• participation in updating curricula and teaching methods;
• engaging stakeholders, donors and partners in cooperation;
• attracting additional sources of funding;
• monitoring of the centre’s activities;
• control over budget execution;
• reorientation of the centre to meet business needs.

As a reminder, there are currently 8 vocational education centres of the State Employment Service in Ukraine – in Odesa, Poltava, Dnipro, Rivne, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, and Sumy. The centres train specialists in 98 working professions and more than 400 areas of further education. Employers can order training at the vocational education centres for existing vacancies or for vacancies that will appear in the near future. They can also send their existing employees for training in a new profession or advanced training at their own expense.