As a former journalist, I thought I should begin by checking some facts. So I searched the main university rankings to see where Ukraine stood. The most famous rankings are compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. They show not a single Ukrainian university. Then I looked at the second most widely used rankings, those compiled by the Times Higher Education newspaper. Again, no sign of Ukraine. Eventually, I found a third set of rankings, compiled by a big Spanish research organization called CSIC. It lists 8,000. There is Shevchenko University of Kyiv at 1,346, and Kyiv Mohyla Academy at 2,055.

These are disappointing figures. Of course, good universities cost a great deal of money, which is why the upper ranks of the world’s universities are dominated by the United States. But the rankings suggest that Ukraine, a country of 46 million people, cannot produce a single university worthy of the world’s top 1,000. That is disappointing, especially when you consider that the CSIC rankings include one of tiny Estonia’s universities in the world’s top 1,000, one of Serbia’s and two Peruvian universities. Clearly, something is wrong.

What might it be? To find out, I talked to young people in Ukraine – both those who teach in universities, and those who have studied (or are studying) there. Nearly all of them told me that their university offered too much theory, and not enough application of theory. It did not inculcate real understanding. The teachers too often just read out of books, and showed no interest in new ideas.

I inquired further, and compiled a list of eight problems that seem to face many of Ukraine’s universities today.

Too many universities are too small. Size matters – it’s easier to teach a broad curriculum when you have scale. It’s impossible to teach high-quality science without scale. So Ukraine needs far fewer, but bigger universities. It’s true that Kyiv Mohyla Academy manages to be both a good university and a small one. But it is a rare exception, with an exceptional history and exceptional management.

Too many universities are too inward-looking. Their academics teach what they have always taught in the way they have always taught it. They have little interest in research – and even if they had, there is no money to pay for it. They have no interest in publishing in – or reading – foreign periodicals. Some professors are wildly out of touch with international understanding of their subject. The government puts barriers in the way of employing foreign-educated academics because the Education Ministry doesn’t automatically recognize their degrees.

In fact, there is too much government intervention in lots of areas. A university can’t start a new course without government permission. That is ridiculous. And one university president was ticked off by the Education Ministry for encouraging teaching in English, on the bizarre grounds that it was contrary to the Constitution.

Indeed, there is far too little emphasis on teaching English. Yet English is the universal language of scholarship. America is the capital of the academic universe, and so every scholar needs to read in English and ideally to teach in English. Students need not just to learn to understand English, but to speak and write it with confidence and accuracy.

Academics are too badly paid. There are devoted teachers – but the best teachers will emigrate if they are underpaid. Underpay is exacerbated by overwork: there is too much teaching. I heard of one group of historians who were teaching 750 hours a year. Universities need less teaching, and more interaction with students.

However, at present, there is not enough emphasis on questioning or on presentation. Students should be praised for questioning – and the tougher the question, the greater the praise should be. They should be able to give a coherent presentation on their subject at end of their course.

At Oxford University, we teach law – but we do not turn out qualified lawyers. Instead, we want students to question human rights, to understand strengths of competing theories of justice, and to think about the impact of law on society. Then, when they leave, they will become excellent and thoughtful lawyers.

There is too much cheating. I understand that bribery for admissions has diminished with the wise introduction of standardized entrance tests. But I heard of lots of cases of students using a mobile phone in an exam, or going out into the corridor halfway through a paper. And there is clearly lots of plagiarism: students (and their teachers) routinely lift someone else’s work and pretend that it is their own. Such behavior guarantees expulsion from a British or American university.

Worse, most students and their families assume that cheating and corruption are intrinsic and acceptable. That is an appalling lesson to teach the young.

Finally, university funding is a mess. Taking a university degree makes you richer. Most students will make the cost of their tuition back five or 10 times over during their lifetime. So why should taxpayers carry most of the burden? Students should pay most of costs of education; government should give financial help to the poorest. Everyone should get used to the basic truth that good education is expensive.

Universities are the brains factories of the world. They are the key resource for a country that hopes to compete internationally in the 21st century. They produce – or should produce – young people who know how to question, to analyze, to understand and to communicate. Whether the university teaches civil aviation or medieval philosophy, the principles should be the same.

However, for the moment, Ukraine’s universities are too inward-looking, too badly staffed, too corrupt and too poor to do a good job. That’s why so many of them are failing their students.

Frances Cairncross is the rector of Exeter College, part of Oxford University, and board member of the Foundation for Effective Governance, a think tank financed by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov.