The Low Down on Ukrainian Higher Education

My translator when we were in Kharkiv, Julia, gave me the low down on the Ukrainian higher education system during a somewhat dull presentation on Ukrainian economics. She even drew a diagram to help explain it (and to keep our noise level down).

I am going to post it here so I don’t forget it.

Secondary school is 12 years. Then, students can go to either an institute, a university, or an academy. A bachelor’s degree is 4 years, and then graduates can either go on to receive a specialist degree in 5 years or a Master’s degree in 5-6 years. Then one can continue for 3-5 years for a Ph.D. Same for a medical degree, I believe.

Another path is to go to secondary school for 9 years and then to a professional college or technical school for 7 years.

The third, and most undesirable path, from what I gleaned, is to attend secondary school for 6 years and what she referred to as practice for an additional 2 years.

I hope I have this correct; this was, at least, how I understood her. Here, I am teaching students who typically attended 12 years or secondary school, and are now in university. One class was comprised of 4th year students who will receive their bachelors' degrees this summer, and my other class is comprised of 5th year Master's degree students.