Viktor Pinchuk, Ukraine’s fourth richest man, has for the second year awarded grants to send 19 students to the world’s best universities.
An industrialist who built up a multi-billion-dollar business empire while his father-in-law, Leonid Kuchma, served as president, spent about $500,000 on grants for the Ukrainians.
Students chosen will this September start studying law, public governance, ecology and agriculture in the prestigious schools of the U.S. and Europe. As part of the grant agreement, students are required to come back and work in their home country for at least five years after completion of studies. “This event reminds me of launching astronauts into space,” said Pinchuk during a June 29 award ceremony that took place at Kyiv’s SkyArt cafй, a part of his modern art gallery. “I hope you will land well in Ukraine,” he added.
Pinchuk selected the strongest from over 100 applicants for the grant, which covers 60 percent of the tuition and living expenses, but doesn’t exceed $50,000. The grantees had to find the rest of the money by themselves.
This event reminds me of launching astronauts into space. I hope you will land well in Ukraine – Viktor Pinchuk, Ukraine’s fourth richest man.
The candidates for the grant had to convince a jury of business leaders and scholars not only that they are the most talented, but also that they would be able to use the knowledge acquired abroad to improve their country.
Just like last year when only two out of 17 winners were male, most of the grantees were ladies. Thomas Weihe, deputy head of the board of international affairs for Pinchuk said it is a “cultural phenomenon.” In Germany, he explained, the number of female students would equal the number of male students. “In 15 years the world will be ruled by Ukrainian women,” Weihe joked.
While Pinchuk declared that he would prefer to sponsor degrees in agriculture, only one student chose to agricultural sciences. Another picked landscape architecture. The majority will study for a master’s in law.
Weihe said there were very few candidates for agrarian degrees “who met the criteria.” He suggested that the possible explanation could be that English was not so widely spoken among students with agriculture majors in Ukraine.
The number of agrarian jobs, however, is growing in Ukraine, according to job portals. The profession remains unpopular, and the agricultural universities are “far from the realities of modern agribusiness,” said Andriy Yarmak, an agricultural expert.
Not only agricultural universities lag behind. None of Ukraine’s 800 universities won a place in the prestigious international ratings for the best schools. “Ukrainian universities don’t have such serious resources and equipment as the universities where the grantees are going. When the government invests in developing such resources, then Ukrainian students will have a real choice between good training abroad and in Ukraine,” said Olga Belkova, former chief of Pinchuk’s educational program who graduated from Harvard with a degree in public administration.
Kyiv Post staff writer Katya Grushenko can be reached at [email protected]
