European Cooperation (Mar 2018)
Problems and tendencies in Modernizing Education and Research in Political Science at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv from the late 1990s till 2010
Abstract
The paper is one of first attempts at analyzing the processes of modernizing the system of training university teachers and scholars in the field of Political Science at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv from the late 1990s till 2010. This period can be considered the third stage in the genesis of specialized education and research in Political Science in Soviet and post-Soviet society. The first one is the introduction of «scientific communism» and turning it into the metanarrative in the USSR and other countries of the socialist commonwealth (mid 1960s – late 1980s). The second stage is a short transitory period from «scientific communism» through teaching social and political disciplines to laying institutional and theoretical foundation of a typical system of education and research in Political Science and research according to western standards (late 1980s – early 1990s). The third stage is a twenty-year-long development and modernization of the model of education and research in Political Science that was shaped at the Department of Philosophy at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in the mid-1990s. The paper looks at the development of the university system of educating specialists in Political Science while viewing the influence of external objective and subjective factors. The most significant among them were the state humanitarian policy and regulatory acts: the law «On Education», decrees and orders of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, decrees of the Higher Attestation Commission, guidelines of the Bologna System, decisions of the governing bodies of the University and the Department of Philosophy. It gives the chronological analysis of measures taken by the bodies and the faculty of the Department at the Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv as the paradigms of national education changed «from the object of education to its subject» and the conceptual guidelines on «the unity of education, research and innovation activities» were implemented. With these essential transformations in the country, the paper gives the main principles and tendencies of organizational, theoretical, methodological modernization of the system of training educators and researchers in the field of Political Science, as well as strategic initiatives and innovation technologies introduced at the Department for improving the learning process and research skills of students seeking to obtain different degrees in Political Science in compliance with the contemporary requirements of the national society, political establishment and labour market, requirements of Ukraine’s European integration.Logically, the study continues and completes a series of previous articles «The Introduction of «Scientific Communism» in the Soviet Union as a Determining Factor of Creating a System of Specialized Political Science Education and Research Field at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv» and «Specificities of the System of Politological Education and Politological Research at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv» published in the «European Cooperation» journal [Вілков, Руденко 2017, № 5, с. 52-73; Вілков, Руденко 2017, № 6, с. 29-48].
