THE VALUE OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LIFE STRATEGIES OF UKRAINIAN YOUTH (BASED ON THE PUBLIC OPINION SURVEY OF FERST-YEAR STUDENTS AT THE NATIONAL AEROSPACE UNIVERSITY)
Abstract
The place, role and value of higher education in modern Ukrainian society are considered in the article. The difficulties of the transition period which have aggravated many problems of higher education in the country have been identified. The growth of unemployment among citizens who have not received the needed knowledge in the new economic conditions, the shortage of skilled labor, the growth of internal and external mobility of the workforce, a dramatic change in the list of attractive occupations in the society, employers’ dissatisfaction with the quality of higher education, graduates that do not work by acquired specialty – all these led to domination of pragmatic value orientations in obtaining higher education. Economic and political transformations in modern Ukraine, as well as the process of formation of the information society change the attitude of young people to higher education as an inalienable value in the context of their life strategies. As a result of the conducted sociological research the authors studied the opinions of first-year students on the value of higher education in modern Ukrainian society. The assessments were divided into three approximately equal groups. 35.4% of first-year students believe that higher education currently does not have much value, there is a stereotype in our society that there is a need to receive it. A person’s individual desire, skills and abilities are much more important for education than having a diploma. 31.9% noted that the value of higher education is going down, because many graduates of universities do not match the required level of qualification or are not in demand on the labor market. Only 32.7% of the surveyed first-year students are convinced that even now higher education is of great value, and without it it’s impossible to find a decent job and to become a qualified specialist. Hence the doubts of 42.3% of the first-year students in the necessity of receiving higher education in modern conditions. The survey shows that the desire to get a prestigious and highly paid job, to become a qualified specialist in a certain field can be attributed to the significant motives for obtaining higher education; to a lesser extent, there is the desire to make a career in the future and to raise one’s social status. Almost 40% believe that higher education will increase their chances of employment as well as give an opportunity to get a job in the chosen specialty abroad. A list of all the motives and differences in the motivations of those who study at the technical and non-technical faculties of KhAI is presented in histograms. Based on the results of the sociological survey, the article in question studies life strategies of that part of the youth, which seeks through higher education and the chosen profession to achieve the set goals and become a successful person. The article provides a detailed analysis of the value of higher education for achieving life goals such as the desire to be financially secure, to become rich, to make a career, to get a profession that is in demand in our society or abroad, to open own business, to acquire high status in society, to realize one’s abilities and talents, to make good friends and create a strong family and to raise children. The degree of importance of higher education for realizing these life strategies is shown on a large number of illustrative material. Comparing these indicators, the authors state that young people receive higher education mainly in order to acquire a demanded profession that can provide them financially (and not necessarily make them rich) and raise their status in the society. And this is typical for girls and for boys approximately equally. Quite unexpectedly there is a trend that the material component and career for girls were more important life strategies than for boys. As it is known, the choice of profession largely determines the success in achieving the goals. An analysis of the opinions of students of various faculties has shown that their level of awareness about the content of their future profession ranges from 50% in some faculties to 30% in others. During the training students hope to receive the missing knowledge about the chosen profession, which in the future will help them find a good job and realize themselves professionally. The analysis of students’ opinions in the article allows the authors to conclude that at the present time the value of higher professional education in the young generation remains in society, but this is a less prevailing factor than before. In modern society value orientations have changed, which led to a change in attitudes toward higher education. Decrease of the prestige of higher education in society is due to the imbalance between the desire to obtain higher education and the complexity of its implementation at the end of the university. In spite of all this, students enrolled in our university consider higher education as the most important resource, keenly increasing the social mobility of the individual, its competitiveness in the labor market, and affecting the achievement of meaningful life goals.
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