The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in its current composition has long been the subject of systematic, consistent and well-deserved criticism – not only from educators, but also from the expert environment, parents and students. Actually, the disintegration of management verticals, the lack of transparency of decisions, loud pseudo-reforms and endless concepts with empty slogans — all this long ago turned the Ministry of Education and Culture into an apparatus of officials who are destroying the education system. Another step has now been taken: Minister Oksen Lisovyi said that the department supports the idea of involving a private initiative in the management of educational institutions. In other words, the ministry admits that it is no longer capable of managing the system that it brought to ruin. All that remains is to remove responsibility from oneself and transfer it to private hands. The idea looks suspiciously familiar: first bring it to stagnation, then announce the “necessity of new approaches”, and then transfer functions to third parties. But education is not logistics or a profitable corporation, and delegation here carries completely different risks.
The educational system is looking for new leaders
Higher education in Ukraine is once again on the threshold of major changes. This time, not because of a new state standard or a change in the head of the Ministry of Education and Science, but because of an idea that would have seemed absurd just a few years ago: the transfer of public universities to private management. Yes, the MES does not rule out such a possibility, but under the condition that such an approach will be “transparent and honest”. About this reported Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovii, noting that the department is ready for a dialogue on this topic and in principle supports the idea of involving the private sector in the management of higher education institutions, if it is not about privatization, but about effective partnership. Lisovyi emphasized that the main condition is “fair rules of the game” so that the new management model does not turn into a tool for abuse.
The deputy head of the Office of the President Olena Kovalska, for her part, supported this idea and noted that there are successful examples of both state and non-state management of universities in Ukraine. She expressed the opinion that if the new model manages to combine the best elements from both approaches, it will be a positive step that the state is ready to support. At the same time, Kovalska emphasized that the introduction of changes in this area will take place according to the principle of piloting, that is, through limited, experimental application of innovations.
It should be noted that this topic was actively discussed after the statement of the former Minister of Economy Tymofiy Mylovanov. He, as the president of the Kyiv School of Economics, offered to buy the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in order, in his words, to “return its greatness”. Mylovanov believes that the university needs a new approach to management and could develop more effectively under the leadership of a private educational foundation. He also assured that education for many students will remain free thanks to the support of donors.
However, the Ministry of Education and Culture immediately declared that there is no question of any privatization of “Mohylyanka”. But Mylovanov, on the other hand, emphasized that his idea does not concern a specific university, but the reform of the entire system. In his opinion, the renewal of Ukrainian education should begin precisely with changes in management approaches.
Private management instead of public management: a new model that could change universities forever
The declared openness to private initiative looks like an admission that the state is not coping. Instead of renewing management approaches within the system, reforming funding, freeing higher education institutions from excessive bureaucracy and giving them autonomy in a real sense, the Ministry is actually looking for someone to transfer this management to. It looks like an attempt to get out of the game without officially closing the universities, but without retaining responsibility for their condition.
This is no longer a partnership, but a voluntary and gradual removal of authority from a large army of officials. If the state is not able to effectively manage higher education institutions, the logical step would be to directly admit it and resign, instead of hiding behind beautiful wording. The system, which for decades functioned on the enthusiasm of individual rectors, meager subsidies and constant “patching of holes”, will now receive a new vector for the search for an external manager.
However, it cannot be denied that the approach itself can give certain positive results. The private sector can indeed offer more flexible management models, better budget planning, and more transparent decision-making mechanisms. Where the state is afraid of risk and hides behind procedures, business thinks in categories of efficiency. And if it is not about “buying out the university”, but about attracting funds, partner councils or transparent supervisory boards, it can have a certain effect. The examples of the world’s universities prove that private funding, institutional autonomy and external supervision do not necessarily harm academic freedom. On the contrary, under certain conditions, it can encourage the university to develop, attract investments, and improve the quality of teaching and research.
But it is in “certain conditions” that the trap is hidden. In Ukraine, where control over the disposal of state property is often nominal, and corruption schemes penetrate even into the purchase of desks, talking about “fair rules of the game” sounds either naive or has hidden implications. The transfer of management without clearly prescribed safeguards opens up space for abuses, commercialization of education, transformation of universities into “diploma firms”.
Officials have forgotten the fact that education cannot be perceived as just a service. This is a social institution, the foundation of the formation of citizens, critical thinking, and culture. If this institute is turned into a business with a charitable wrapper, there is a risk of losing its essence. Philanthropists can finance free education, as Mylovanov promises, as long as this course is profitable and popular. Therefore, no one can guarantee stability in this matter.
It is worth noting that regional universities, which are barely making ends meet, will be the first to be hit. The private sector will not invest in something that does not bring profit or image. If a university does not have a brand, influential alumni or the potential for quick monetization, it will simply be “filed”.
Next will come a change in access to education. Even if free education is maintained at the start, the system may gradually drift towards paid models, where “accessibility” will take place only for those who can afford it or “donors liked”. It is obvious that such an approach will destroy the fundamental principle of equal access to higher education.
World universities as an example: private money without loss of academic freedom
World educational practice has long proven that a university can be independent, powerful and high-quality not only with state support. Some of the most influential universities in the world have combined private funding, autonomous management and effective external control without losing academic freedom. It was thanks to such a model that they strengthened it.
Harvard, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have become symbols of global science that have been in the top of world rankings for years. They are financed mostly from private sources: donations, grants, contracts with businesses. But these universities are not commercial enterprises. They have clear governance systems, supervisory boards, transparent reporting, and academic autonomy that allows them to develop science without dictates from any donor. Moreover, it is thanks to private foundations that Harvard, for example, maintains scholarships for students from various social strata.
British Oxford and Cambridge have managed to modernize and maintain a balance between state funding and a significant share of independent investment. Their autonomy not only did not destroy the quality of education, but allowed them to be flexible, quickly respond to the challenges of the time, and form their own development policy.
Zurich University of Technology is one of the leading technical universities in Europe, which cooperates with corporations, receives funding from various sources, but at the same time strictly adheres to the principle of non-interference of investors in the content of education and research.
The process of private financing of universities in foreign countries is a complex and balanced system that maintains a balance between financial support and preservation of academic independence. This is not just “handing over” the university to someone else’s hands, as Ukrainian officials imagine. It’s about structured cooperation, clear rules, transparency and trust built up over decades. And such an approach does not harm the system, but, on the contrary, in many cases makes it more stable.
In such leading universities as Harvard, Stanford or Oxford, a large part of the budget is endowment funds (money that the university receives in the form of donations from alumni, patrons, corporations or private foundations – ed.). These funds are invested, and the university lives off the profits. The endowment itself is not spent, but grows as capital. For example, the Harvard endowment in 2023 amounted to more than USD 50 billion. These funds allow the university to finance scholarships, research, and infrastructure without total dependence on the state or commerce.
Many universities cooperate with private companies, concluding research contracts, conducting joint innovation projects, and launching internship programs. This does not mean that the corporation dictates what to teach. With this approach, a symbiosis is more likely to emerge, where the university provides expertise, and the business provides resources. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has dozens of research centers funded with the participation of private giants, but with clearly defined limits of influence. Universities actively attract funding through private scientific foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, or the Ford Foundation. These funds often go to scientific research, social programs, and inclusive education. They do not violate autonomy, because each grant has its own conditions, but the university itself decides whether to accept it or not. Financial autonomy works only under the condition of clear control mechanisms. Universities are obliged to report on the use of funds to donors, students, and accreditation bodies. They are controlled by independent supervisory boards, where various stakeholders are represented — alumni, scientists, philanthropists, and sometimes even students.
It is obvious that such an approach does not destroy the system if it is built correctly. A privately funded university does not lose its independence when it has clear principles of academic autonomy, does not allow donors to influence educational programs or scientific conclusions, has a code of ethics that prohibits covert lobbying or manipulation, and remains open to various social groups, including through scholarship programs.
A foreign example demonstrates that financial diversification is not a capitulation, but a sign of a stable system that does not depend on a single source of income and can survive crises. In Western countries, it has long become a standard. For Ukraine, such an approach is possible only after creating real safeguards so that the university does not turn into a private business with diplomas, but remains what it should be: an institution of public importance.
What is missing in the Ukrainian system
But in Ukrainian realities, such an initiative threatens more than it promises. Not because it is bad in itself, but because the environment in which they want to implant it is simply not ready for it. What works in Harvard or Cambridge may not simply not work in Cherkasy or Uzhgorod, but may finally finish off an already weakened system. In Ukraine, there is still no stable university management mechanism that would guarantee autonomy without anarchy. Rectors are often political or clan figures, supervisory boards have a formal character, and the management structure itself resembles a vestige from Soviet times, tinted with European terminology. The transfer of management to private structures in such a context has little resemblance to a reform, but rather a step into the fog, where the rules are set by the strongest or the closest.
Today, Ukrainian universities are like ships that were allowed to hold the helm, but left their hands tied. All strategic decisions are often made somewhere “above”, and rectors play the role of “obedient” administrators between the ministry and the staff, who only learn about the innovation after the fact. Students, despite loud statements about the involvement of young people in management, mostly remain passive observers, who are mentioned only in speeches about “European values”.
In the situation that has developed around the initiative of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, we are dealing not with a separate management decision, but with a deep systemic shift. The transfer of state universities to external management structures is not an administrative reform, but the dismantling of the system. When instead of the state guarantee of educational sovereignty, the model of “management efficiency” is introduced, we enter the territory where the public interest is inferior to the private one. Such changes usually do not lead to modernization. They mean that the university ceases to be an autonomous academic community and turns into an object for external control – commercial or political. This is not a movement forward, but a rollback to managerial colonization in a new packaging.
The European model of university autonomy is not based on market expediency, but on respect for academic freedom, openness and inviolability of intellectual space. In no EU country does the state allow commercial players to establish control over higher education institutions, because this undermines the foundations of democracy. Universities are not business structures, but a space for civic education, critical thinking and strategic national development. To put them at disposal outside the limits of public control is to admit that the state no longer sees the point in developing its own intellectual potential.
It is especially alarming that such steps are taking place at a time when Ukraine is declaring a course for European integration. Such a policy directly contradicts the standards that are proclaimed in the European Union. Transparency, accountability, respect for educational autonomy – all this cannot coexist with the “transfer to management” model. Such a “reform” actually does not reform, but destroys.
It also sets a dangerous precedent. If today commercial structures get the right to manage universities, tomorrow a similar model can be applied to other institutions — scientific centers, law enforcement and anti-corruption bodies, judicial structures. Thus, the principle of the distribution of power is destroyed, which means the basis of democracy. The initiative to transfer state universities to external management is a strategic mistake that threatens not only the educational system, but also the future of the state in general. If this idea is implemented, it will lead to intellectual decline, erosion of the public sector and the gradual usurpation of state functions by undemocratic interests.
It is obvious that the system desperately lacks self-governance. Not simulations in the form of formal academic councils, but effective mechanisms where every participant in the educational process has the right to vote, and not just the opportunity to “get acquainted with the order”. In universities where teachers are afraid to talk about problems publicly, and students do not believe that something depends on them, no reform will work.
Another chronic flaw is the absolute lack of transparency in financial reporting. How much money came, where it went, who decided what and for what reason — all this is often either hidden or recorded in documents that neither students nor the public have access to. Open audit and financial reporting in public access are not characteristic of Ukrainian universities. And without transparency, even the most honest investor will turn into a source of conflicts and suspicions.
There are still many “grey areas” in the legislation itself. It does not prescribe strict safeguards that would make it impossible, for example, to adapt the charter to one profitable partner, or to transfer university buildings for commercial development under the guise of “space optimization”. When business enters an area where the rules can be changed on the fly, it almost always ends up turning a public resource into a private feeder. And even if all formal mechanisms were prescribed, without a culture of integrity, they will remain a fiction. Because any document is bypassed by those who do not see a moral problem in it. For now, “closeness to the leadership” weighs more than professionalism, and “their own” will always find workarounds and the academic community will not be able to become truly independent.
It is also worth noting that reforms in education cannot take place in the rhythm of the political cycle or corporate impatience. This is not a redistribution of spheres of influence or a campaign to optimize costs, but a long and complex process of building a system that should work not until the next minister, but for generations to come. But in Ukraine, instead of systemic design, we usually see an institutional assault, the consequences of which we will unravel for years.
It is obvious that Ukrainian universities need modernization. But for this, they must first be given not new masters, but real autonomy, fair rules of the game, and time not for survival, but for development. And for now, transferring universities to private management is too risky a step for a country where the state has not yet learned to bear responsibility, and business has not yet learned to act within the limits of ethics. And until these two powers learn to speak the same language and act in unison, education must remain only a state affair.
