OREANDA-NEWS. August 30, 2010. Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov considers it necessary to build a new model of interaction between the education system and the real economy. The Head of Government said this today, opening a special meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers.

"The Government is ready to support the competitive areas and projects of education for basic science. Concerning specialties in high demand in the real economy, in business - here it is necessary to build a new system of interaction between universities and the national economy", emphasized Mykola Azarov.

The Prime Minister noted that in the budget for 2011 the Government plans to increase significantly the state budget expenditures for education, but the state treasury will fail with large-scale education reform in the coming years. In this context, the Prime Minister believes it is necessary to develop research and innovation center based schools.

So, according to him, the experience of leading foreign universities shows that they are scientific innovation centres, which draw on hundreds of industrial and commercial establishments. According to the Head of the Government, for example, the annual budget for external research at Oxford for 10 years has increased approximately 3 times, and the research budget of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 exceeded 700 million USD.

At the same time, Mykola Azarov is sure, that profession oriented education requires particular attention, because for 20 years, a number of vocational schools in Ukraine has decreased by 20% and a number of trained skilled workers - by 36,5%, which causes growing scarcity of builders, engineers, mechanics, skilled agrarians.