OREANDA-NEWS. October 19, 2009. The third Discussion Club meeting initiated by SCM took place on 15 October 2009, in Dnepropetrovsk, with the support of Dnepropetrovsk State Regional Administration. The partner of the event was the European Business Association. New Most Information Agency was the information partner and Segodnya-Dnepropetrovsk acted as a media partner of the event.

The meeting was titled "Ensuring a dialogue between the labour market and tertiary education in Ukraine".

Participants of the Discussion Club meeting in Dnepropetrovsk presented case studies of interaction between higher education institutions and employers of Southern Ukraine (Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozh’ye, Nikolayev, Odessa and Kherson Oblasts and the Crimea), which allow the students to get skills and knowledge required by the real sector of economy. Also, the meeting discussed new initiatives of employers and universities in this area as well as specific actions to be taken by Ukrainian universities and the education system to guarantee the education, which meets employers' demands.

"Competitiveness of our higher education today is the base for competitiveness of Ukrainian economy tomorrow.  The real sector needs a critical mass of well-educated talents. Our common task is to search, train and retain these talented people in Ukraine. Being the biggest Ukrainian employer, SCM understands that and cooperates with the key universities whose activities are related to our business", noted Natalia Yemchenko, Director of Public Relations and Communications at SCM. "The objective of the Discussion Club is to collect the best case studies on cooperation between universities and business in Ukraine, to organize the data and make the information available for university entrants and their parents. Armed with the knowledge of which universities cooperate with which enterprises, future students could make an informed choice of their Alma Mater".

Over 70 representatives of the academic circle, local authorities, employers, expert community and mass media discussed cooperation between higher education institutions and employers of the southern region of Ukraine.

Addressing the participants, the Chairman of Dnepropetrovsk Oblast Council, Yury G. Vilkul, said: "Today our government, employers and universities must do everything possible to help university graduates find jobs where they could pursue the profession received in university and perform their professional responsibilities well. It is obvious that to ensure jobs for future graduates every enterprise and every employer should "make an order", that is they must explain what kind of specialists they need. In this case young specialists will have more specific, more clearly formulated and high-quality training. Let me emphasize that universities, employers and authorities should consolidate their efforts to implement the task".

The participants of the Discussion Club of Southern region included representatives of Dnepropetrovsk (National Mining University, Academician V.Lazaryan Dnepropetrovsk National Railway Transport University, Dnepropetrovsk State Financial Academy, Dnepropetrovsk State Chemical Technology University, Dnepropetrovsk State University of Internal Affairs, National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine, Pridneprovsk State Academy of Construction and Architecture, Oles' Gonchar Dnepropetrovsk National University, Dnepropetrovsk University of Economics and Law, Nikopol Economic University), Odessa (Odessa National Polytechnic University, Odessa Institute of Entrepreneurship and Law) and the Crimean (Sevastopol National Technical University, Tavrida National V.I. Vernadsky University) higher education institutions. Business-representatives who participated and gave a speech at the meeting of the Discussion Club were major companies of the Southern Region such as: Metinvest (Northern and Central GOKs, Avlita), DTEK, INTERPIPE, Vega Telecommunication Group, MTS-Ukraina,  CENTRAVIS Holding, Sozidatel Construction Company, Energoresursy, Nikopol Technical Equipment Plant as well as European Business Association and others.

During the meeting representatives of higher education institutions and employers presented their case studies of cooperation between the tertiary education institutions and real sector of economy.

Please, note that two regional meetings of the Discussion Club have taken place in 2009 (in the eastern region (Donetsk and in the western region (Lvov)). For more information, please see the website of the project.

The final meeting of the Discussion Club is to take place on December 2, in Kiev, in the central region of Ukraine (Kiev, Vinnitsa, Zhitomir, Kirovograd, Poltava, Sumy, Cherkassy and Chernigov Oblasts and the City of Kiev).

For more information about the SCM’s social programme Contemporary Education and the projects Compass University Ranking and the Discussion Club, please visit the section "Contemporary education" on the corporate website of SCM Group.