Victor Pinchuk Foundation plans to organize the translation of the most popular online lectures into Ukrainian so that the maximum number of Ukrainian citizens can get access to them, Pinchuk has told journalists.
“Philanthropists can be responsible for the translation of major lectures in English into the languages of their native countries. I’ll certainly do that: we’ll finance the translation into Ukrainian the main subjects that are the most interesting to Ukraine, and perhaps into Russian too,” he said at a roundtable on online education organized by the foundation held at the Davos World Economic Forum.
The businessman added that earlier Carlos Slim, one of the wealthiest people in the world, said that he would arrange the translation of such courses into Spanish.
Pinchuk proposed a possible business model: education would be free, but if you want to receive a diploma you have to pay. “Maybe philanthropists could take this role on themselves,” he said.
According to him, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation has also started cooperating with some online education resources at the global level.
“And possibly we’ll finance the elaboration of some special courses we consider to be important. For example, leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation. Not only for Ukraine, but for the whole world,” the founder said.
During the discussion Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Honorary President of Harvard University President Emeritus Larry Summers expressed that opinion that online education would nor resolve the problem of the absence of a motivation to study and would be no substitute for the unique student environment. Summers gave an example, when the football fans stand in the queues to pay rather big money and to sit on a cold bench, without food, without a possibility to review the moments of the match of their favourite team, but not to watch it on TV at home.
“This example is good, when the match takes place in New York and you’re in New York, but when you’re a football fan in Kyiv or Cape Town than the better chance to watch the game is on TV. That’s why Ukrainian students must get the best that is in the world,” Pinchuk said.
Popular Internet entrepreneur, co-founder of PayPal, and head of the Founders Fund Peter Thiel said during the discussion that the situation on the education market is like the bubble that burst several years ago on the real estate market, as the cost of the higher education has grown by 400% since 1980.
According to him, the debts of students are growing by billions of dollars, and they have to pay for it until their old age.
“Young people have a feeling that the system was destroyed, and it should be restored,” Thiel said adding that online education is one of the important and efficient instruments to resolve this task.
According to the report of Victor Pinchuk Foundation announced at the roundtable, $14.34 million in grants were issued by the foundation in 2011. The main expenses, of a total of $4.6 million, fell on Cradles of Hope program at $2 million, while $1.2 million was spent to conduct the Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum, grants to the Clinton Global Initiative and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation totalled $1.1 million and $500,000 respectively, $790,000 was invested in Zavtra.ua, and $620,000 in local programs of Dnipropetrovsk.
The holding of the philanthropic roundtable in 2011 cost $150,000, and the traditional Ukrainian lunch – $120,000.
