OREANDA-NEWS. May 22, 2012. SCM has presented fifth Compass university ranking compiled as usually by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).

Compass-2012 is a part of SCM's social programme, Contemporary Education. This year it covers 232 Ukrainian universities of 3rd-4th state accreditation levels training bachelors, specialists and masters in five areas:  business/economy, law, engineering/technical professions, information technologies (IT) and architecture/construction.

National Technical University of Ukraine "Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" tops the ranking for the fifth year. Kiev Shevchenko National University also shows stable performance running second since 2010. The third place is shared by National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and Kiev Hetman National Economic University, which has retained the place since last year. Places four and five saw rotation this year. Lviv Polytechnic National University ranked fifth in 2011 and promoted to place four, while Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture went one position down and now ranks fifth.

Along with the national ranking, the project also developed five sectoral rankings. Full version of Compass-2012 is published on website of the project and in Segodnya newspaper of 15 May 2012.

Today we have presented the fifth Compass that will be a traditional reliable guide for university entrants. They will need to make quite a hard choice and I hope that our ranking reflecting the opinion of employers will help them to make the very best decision. Hopefully, the universities will use the ranking as well as they can look at themselves through the eyes of employers, assess their position in the Ukrainian education market and begin to eliminate drawbacks, said Natalia Yemchenko, SCM Director of Public Relations and Communications.

Compass was realized with support of the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sport, leading experts of the Academy of Education, BEST research centre, the European Training Foundation and Perspektywy Education Foundation (Poland).

At the Compass 2012 awarding ceremony SCM also presented a new website, Best Universities, and a research Ukrainian Graduates Through Eyes of Employers. The portal presentation is available on SCM's website.

Best Universities is the only online website about Ukraine's universities. The portal will provide quality information about Ukrainian higher schools and present them on the English-speaking web (the portal will be in two languages). The website will systematize available information about higher education in Ukraine, determine competitive and other advantages of Ukrainian higher schools in the country and the global educational area, integrate Ukrainian education system into the international environment and improve the quality of education in Ukraine.

SCM also presented a pilot research, Ukrainian Graduates Through Eyes of Employers, developed by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. It took a series of in-depth interviews with HR departments of Ukrainian and international businesses (including DTEK, Ernst&Young, KPMG, Kyivstar, MTS, SCM, Carlsberg Ukraine, Coca-Cola, etc) about the education quality of Ukrainian graduates today. According to the research, 26% employers say that the quality of training of Ukrainian graduates has eroded over the past five years. About a third of respondents argue that the quality has not changed and only 20% talk about better quality. Full research is available on www.yourcompass.org.