08/19/2006 | Спостерігач

THREE YEARS PASSED. EVERYTHING HAS REMAINED WITHOUT CHANGES.

http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2003/340307.shtml
Harvard's Grabowicz speaks about education reform in Ukraine

by Lesya Holovata

LVIV - On June 5 Prof. George Grabowicz presented an expanded edition of his book "Do Istorii Ukrainskoi Literatury" (Towards a History of Ukrainian Literature) at a conference on "The History of Reading in Ukraine" held at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv. That same day, he gave an interview to UCU journalist Lesya Holovata.

Dr. Grabowicz is the Dmytro Cyzevskyj Professor of Ukrainian Literature at Harvard University, former director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, and founder and editor-in-chief of the journal Krytyka.

Q: Though you work at Harvard, you are at the same time included in the Ukrainian educational context, and so are in a position to compare principles of training young scholars.

A: Unfortunately, there are very few scholarly institutions in Ukraine that are implementing reforms. I can single out from among all the universities only the Ukrainian Catholic University and the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NUKMA), and, to a great extent, Ivan Franko National University in Lviv is different from the mass. On the whole, the work style of educational institutions has not been reformed yet. I constantly stress a great anomaly: the number of young specialists is growing, there is even a middle generation, but, with the few exceptions mentioned above, they do not have access to the levers of institutional power.

Therefore, the anomaly remains: in the West people can become students at the age of 55-60 (definitely not a young age), and in Ukraine even at that age people cannot gain real power in the educational system, in particular in Ukrainian academic studies. This is the direct result of Stalinism in Ukrainian learning.

Young scholars must be stimulated to continue searching for fundamental values: high scholarly standards, a comparative approach to working with sources, emphasizing the study of sources, and constant comparison of the Ukrainian context to the international one, in order to avoid big gaps.

Q: You don't see any progress?

A: Do you see any? Has there been any reform of personnel policy at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine? None. Have there been any systemic changes in the method of self-government of the institutes of the Academy of Sciences - independence of the institutions from central forces, being able to make cuts in staff and selection of work, liberation of departments and their projects? No.

I know that when a project is approved at the Institute of Literature, it becomes a joint "collective farm" matter. Nobody can overstep its limits or have their own position. This is nonsense! I can understand that when people work on some big plan, like, for example, the creation of the atomic bomb during World War II in America, then nobody has the right to be distracted from the cause. And if somebody has doubts about the goal of the project, that person is not included in the team. But that's an extreme example.

The thing is, I would be eager to hear objections, counterarguments, statements opposing mine from representatives of Ukrainian academic learning, in particular, the humanities field. However, I have been writing for 12 years now, and no one has even attempted to answer my challenge.

Q: Do you have in mind representatives of academia?

A: Yes, starting from Yevhen Paton, who has been the head of the National Academy of Sciences for over half a century, from Stalin's time to today. This is a disgrace! This couldn't happen anywhere else in the world. I ask at every forum if it is going to continue like this for long. But people just shrug: "We can't do anything." There's no other reaction.

Realistically, what changes can be made now in the system of education? If representatives from the administrations of all the important institutions of higher education in Ukraine gathered together, would they be able to create an alternative to the official program "Education XXI"?

No, they can't, because the people who are in charge of these matters were chosen according to a different method in the first place and cannot reform themselves. It's a vicious circle.

Q: Is there a solution?

A: I don't see any. Either we're going to have new political leadership: a new president, a new Parliament, who are going to see the current absolute crisis of this sector of Ukrainian social life and will make fundamental changes, which I do not expect, or we have to look for alternative means in order to extend this activity, as is done at UCU and NUKMA.

On the one hand, we are making alternative, high-quality attempts to reform education. On the other hand, the establishment protects itself with a vacuum. Scholars are instructed to write articles according to its requirements and publish them in its journals, otherwise, they will not be counted. VAK [the Higher Attestation/Certifying Commission; Vyshcha Atestatsina Komysia] does not consider Krytyka or Harvard Ukrainian Studies to be scholarly publications.

We are here dealing with the heirs of the Soviet system, Brezhnev, Khrushchev, Andropov and Stalin. I have no other words to describe it. There are no mechanisms for dismantling it. I emphasize again: it is absolutely necessary to spread reforming thoughts in order for them to eventually reach political leaders.

Q: Would it have to be a complex program or a stage-by-stage phenomenon: first, personnel policy, then, restructuring of the educational process and implementation of new methods?

A: Everything at the same time. It is necessary to do everything legally possible. It would be good to start with personnel policy. This is very difficult to implement, for no mechanical means have been worked out.

I, for one, thought for a long time that it was necessary to pass a strict law according to which persons over 40 would retire. But this would not solve the problem, either. For many 30-year-olds are already clones of 70-year-olds. They have managed to clone themselves already! To make sure this is so, one just has to look through a few books and see in what manner they're written. It is an exclusively mechanical method of updating, which does not guarantee success.

I also suggested another method: only a person who speaks English, French and German could be in charge of any humanities department.

Q: What a reform that would be! But would there be enough qualified personnel to fill the gigantic vacancies?

A: All right, at least they should be fluent in English. For those Soviet mastodons don't speak and have never even tried to learn any other language except Ukrainian and Russian. Which of them have had their works published in the West? The same is true not only of humanities, but also of natural sciences, medicine, politics.

I'm not the only one talking about this. Once I was even called "the terminator" for saying things which sounded too radical. This was written about in Krytyka. Articles under a pseudonym periodically appear in the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia. A year ago someone gave a very accurate description of this: Ukrainian learning includes genuine scholars and singers. By "singers" was meant Poplavskyi, president of a so-called university (the establishment is also called "Kuliok" [Russian for plastic bag]).

Poplavskyi can be called a singer only theoretically, because he has not become either a pop star, welcomed by anybody in the West, or a singer performing at La Scala in Milan. He is a singer only in the Ukrainian context, where he can have a monopoly. Similar patterns are true of many Ukrainian so-called "scholars." It is a fact. Despite anything I may say, this man and this institution will continue to exist, as they have backing and an established system.

Q: The condition of academic learning looks rather pessimistic in your interpretation: problems exist, solutions don't.

A: Learning is developing, but not as quickly as it could be. I don't want to be seen by the reader as some kind of Cassandra, who blackens everything. It is just the opposite, I stress: there are new people, interesting events, books, organizations, actions. However, there is a lack of institutional backing. It is sporadic.

Fortunately, we have UCU and NUKMA. This is already an achievement. But it is a minimal share in the vast sector of education and learning.

What kind of crisis are we in if the book of Veles is mentioned in all school textbooks of literature as the first Ukrainian classic, despite the fact it's a fake? Why is this so? Because the Collegium of the Institute of Literature and Kyiv National University wrote it into the school curriculum with the subtle description of a "hypothetical" monument. But the majority of teachers of third to fifth grade most probably don't know the meaning of this word. Anyway, it is either a monument or not. There is no other way. That is the hybrid nature of our scholarship.

Q: If you say this so openly to our readers, why don't you offer your cooperation to the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and Ministry of Education?

A: There has been no reaction to any of my statements. Semi-official organs have a tendency to behave according to the principle of throwing stones in the opponent's garden: somebody may hint at something somewhere in the lobby, but there are neither direct debates nor discussions. This illustrates the sickliness of the situation.

Neither Mykola Zhulynskyi, nor Vasyl Kremen, nor Yevhen Paton ever said: "We read Grabowicz's report and, in our opinion, his arguments are not correct." That would be a recognition of the existence of an opposition. Currently, everything is done in the Soviet manner of not ever recognizing the existence of an opposite vision.

(Translated from Ukrainian by Oleh Shved.)