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HYBRIDITY IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF UKRAINE: GLOBAL LOGIC OR LOCAL IDIOSYNCRASY?
Olga Gomilko — Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy (Kyiv, Ukraine)
E-mail: olga.gomilko@gmail.com
Denys Svyrydenko — Doctor of Philosophy, Associated Professor, National Pedagogical Dragomanov University (Kyiv, Ukraine)
E-mail: denis_sviridenko@ukr.net
Sergii Terepyshchyi — PhD, Associated Professor, National Pedagogical Dragomanov University (Kyiv, Ukraine)
E-mail: sergii.terepishchyi@gmail.com
Hybridity as a heuristic concept of the globalization and post-colonialism discourses is used for 1) understanding the logic of the modernization of the higher education of Ukraine (HEU), and 2) for making a meaningful diagnosis of those educational pathologies that restrain it. The educational pathologies are considered as the conditioned by post-coloniality and post-totalitarianism departure or deviation from the undertaking of the original missions of higher education (HE): "to educate, to train and to undertake research" (World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century: Vision and Action, 1998). Modernity as a philosophical concept and normative ideal that focus on increasing rational components in a human life is exploited for showing the ways of carrying out the missions of HE by adjusting particular patterns of rationality to the needs and wants of society. However, globalization puts modernity under challenges due to its bent toward de/or non-modern cultural practices. That's why the logic of modernization in HEU acquires hybrid characteristics by fitting together different, multiple, opposing educational models and standards — post-colonial, post-totalitarian, modern, de/non-modern and global through the local acceptance. Therefore, the locality turns into a focal point of the modernization of HEU in a global context. The modernization of HEU reveals the ambivalent meaning of hybridity in its producing and destructive potential, i.e. as a global logic or a local idiosyncrasy.
Keywords: hybridity, higher education, higher education of Ukraine, globalization, modernity.
Introduction
Hybridity has been growing increasingly in popularity as a buzzword for the description of the present-day realities. They frequently speak about the hybrid engine, hybrid pedagogy, hybrid war, hybrid policy etc. Borrowed from the biology thesaurus, the concept of hybridity has been gaining an epistemological stance for humanitarian inquiries. The connection between the natural sciences and humanities has been restored by the need to develop the logic of interaction and mixing of different/or
© Gomilko Olga, 2016
© Svyrydenko Denys, 2016
© Terepyshchyi Sergii, 2016
adverse ontological entities within the framework of the globalization discourse. For the globalization unprecedentedly opens opportunities for a meeting of unmeetable and so often unmatchable phenomena. Configurations of interactions among them become more mingled and confused that provoke unpredictable consequences. The concept of hybridity manifests complexity and ambivalent character of such meetings. The Colin Trevorrow film Jurassic World (2015) is a warning to the mankind about risks of hybridity. Created by scientists, a new kind of a lizard-dinosaur combines in itself various properties of living creatures in a way that it has become the most dangerous and invincible creature. A certain combination of different living abilities might produce a monster. However, social networks by bringing together millions of people unlock enormous potency for productive cooperation and effective fruition. That is why hybridity requires multipronged approaches that let us fix on as the logic of openness and diversity, so as the logic of deadlock with no exit.
The task of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, to justify a hybridity logic of the modernization process in HEU, and, on the other hand, to diagnose a pathologic character of hybridity in HEU that prevents its successful modernization in terms of increasing and enhancing its rational grounds. In this context modernity is considered as the cultural capacity for all-around developing and strengthening a human rationality particularly by means of HE institutionalizing. Therefore, the modernization of HEU is taken as the process of its transformation and optimization in accordance with the highest educational standards in the world. In the paper, we are not going to enter into the discussion concerning modernity and modern education since it requires a special consideration. We are clinging to the claim that "Modernity constitutes a civilizational-educational framework for knowing, teaching, and learning about the world as modern" [Baker & Peters, 2012: p. 30]. We interpret the term of modern as productive, efficient, and sustainable mode of representing of a human reason in different social-cultural practices. That's why we hold modernity in its universal human significance as the paradigm of a productive human rationality. Thereby in our research, we exclude the negative connotations of modernity as the dehumanization and Eurocentric processes. The Euromaidan protest movement, which took place in Ukraine in 2013, has proved a positive attitude of a Ukrainian society to the European model of civilization, based on the priority of ideas of reason as a normative ideal of culture and generative development: "One of the important tasks is to research in what manner the post-totalitarian situation has impact on democracy culture" [Gomilko, 2012: p. 354].
Focusing on the hybridity in HEU, we are trying to figure out the feasibilities and impediments of the modernization through the optic of mixing the features of postcolonial (imperial — Russian, Austro-Hungarian), post-totalitarian (Soviet), national (Ukrainian), modern (European / Western) and global (world high standards) paradigms of higher education. As a result, there is a special coexisting in HEU of the modern, pre-modern and non-modern educational elements. It resulted in the appearance of the hybridity, which, on the one hand, threatens global perspectives of HEU, but, on the other hand, may turn under certain conditions to be an effective agent of their implementations.
The analysis of the hybridity in HEU departures from both perspectives: as a global logic of the modernization in terms of fulfillment of the original missions HE "to educate, to train and to undertake research" (WD, 1998), or/and as local idiosyncrasies,
which preserve or pull back into pre/or non-modern types of education. While a global logic indicates the universal world strategy of HE, then a local idiosyncrasy filtrates it, sometimes even rejects. Therefore, the local becomes important not as much as a recipient of the global, but rather as its opponent and also as a hybrid maker.
The study of the hybridity in HEU can help to identify the factors that resist not only the modernization of HEU but prevent sliding the contemporary HE beyond the modern guidance. That warning sounds in resonance with Nicolas Maxwell's call for the urgent need for an academic revolution since "we need institutions of learning rationally designed and devoted to helping us learn how to solve our global problems, how to make progress towards a better world" [Maxwell: 2014: p. 5].
Modernity and/or Globalization as Hybridity Hybridity as a Global Concept and/or a Local Concept
The concept of hybridity has not gained popularity among Ukrainian philosophers of education. However, its heuristic account is obvious and has been clarified above. Thus, the current Russian military aggression against Ukraine can be hardly described with the help of classical definitions. It combines here the things that exclude the idea of war — the aggressor provides "humanitarian aid", the soldiers turn into "green men" and militants on the one hand resort to "referenda", on the other hand, they destroy civilian aircraft. The absurd of the situation gets its clarification in the notion of hybridity, when not simply a combination of incompatible entities occurs, but the special logic of their connections manifests. The things, which in traditional forms exclude the congruence, in the logic of hybridity, gain the meaning of combination. However, while a hybrid war is discussed by the whole world, the hybridity of HEU is hardly ever mentioned.
The concept of hybridity arose in the contexts of globalization discourse and postcolonial studies [Kraidy, 2005; Thomas, 1996]. Both discourses benefit in the conceptual framing of hybridity. Thus, the discourse of globalization actualizes the issues arising from greater interaction and mixing of heterogeneous cultural practices. Unlike previous cultural interactions, in the era of globalization a chance emerges for the intersection of such cultural forms, meeting of which previously was improbable. Here are the main (in our opinion) definitions of globalization, which point to its ambivalent hybridity character. 1) Expansion of the area of cultural interaction as a key definition of globalization [Giddens, 1990]. 2) Resulting from these expansion pathological cultural hodgepodges become possible. Examples of military aggression and cultural intolerance in Russia and Islamic states testify to this. Consequently, a global hodgepodge is not only expanding but also creates threatening interactions. However, 3) it is globalization that increases the available options for organization, and therefore it keeps not so much the trend of unification but rather the opportunity for diversification. Hybridization as a global diversification is anchored by the concept of transculturality [Welsh, 1999]. This term is used to denote such cultural interactions that go beyond the classical modern forms of homogeneity and separation. In the context of transculturality, a global hybridity acquires the meaning of post-hybridity [Pieterse, 2013]. Finally, the meaning 4) of globalization as unification, depersonalization and simplification also have hybrid connotations. Such phenomena as "McDolnonization", "co-colonization", "Americanization" or "westernization" are notorious effects of both the global expansion of Western culture and the local idiosyncrasy of its reception.
It is not by accident that hybridity theory has developed also in the discourse of post-colonial studies. The intersection of imperial and local cultures creates different kinds of practices and ideas. While some of them articulate the colonial values, others destroy them. Meanwhile, not always the local holds authentic meanings as culturally productive practices. In some cases, the imperial brings development to the local. For example, the modernization of a large part of former modern colonies took place due to the interaction with metropolises. For this reason, the local in the post-colonial studies requires a critical analysis.
Consequently, the study of hybridity in global contexts in the framework of postcolonial studies is supposed to focus on the local. It is no accident that situationality appears as a fundamental principle of a research methodology. The growing influence of the so-called "situational politics" of contemporary social and philosophical studies puts under question the static constructs of the modern normativity and promotes the cooperation between normative and empirical-analytic theories, widespread use of interdisciplinary approaches etc. The concept of hybridity helps to preserve the normative component in ad hoc policy of research. It is not about its universal content and application, but the heuristic promise of the hybridity in the research of the phenomena that are changing their classic modern forms in the context of the global changes. Thereby the concept of hybridity as the concept of global and post-colonial discourses has no universal meaning and usage. The later does not make the concept of hybridity a methodological contradictive. Lack of the conceptual universality of the concept of hybridity puts the emphasis on its practical implications. Beyond the specific situation, hybridity study loses its heuristic potential.
Higher Education in Ukraine: the Problematics of Analysis
The general conclusion of many studies concerning the issues of HEU is the recognition of the problematics of its modernization [Oleksiyenko, 2016; Kuraev, 2015]. Such results are evidently shown in monitoring research of integration of HEU into the European Higher Education (EHE) and scientific research [Finikov & Sharov, 2014]. The structure of the mentioned study is focused on the key provisions of the basic documents in Bologna process, which provides a framework for monitoring analysis of other national systems of HE. However, that approach is not productive for the time being. As a matter of fact, HEU does not meet the framework within which the European national educational systems function in European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The path to it lays through laborious and lengthy institutional and regulatory implementation of the framework. Turning to research on national systems of HE in Eastern Europe, e.g. such as the neighboring Ukraine country of Romania [Curaj, 2015], we see that the problematics of integration of the Romanian HE into EHEA grows from the sensitive points of its real presence in it. While HEU is in such educational space, the main characteristic of which is hybridity.
The material of the above research is split into the one made "prior to February 2014 and after February 2014" [Finikov & Sharov, 2014: p. 6] that legitimizes optimistic expectations about the prospects for European integration of HEU after the revolutionary events of 2013. However, the question arises: what are the grounds for this optimism? Indeed, throughout the period of Ukrainian independence, HEU constantly declares intention for modernization. The joining of HEU to the Bologna process in 2005 seems to have changed the situation fundamentally. However, the
expected changes have not occurred either as a result of involving HEU to the Bologna reform nor now after the Ukrainian people shed their blood for the European future for their country. It is a pity that this monitoring does not focus on the causes of these failures. While the monitoring indicated that "some reference to earlier periods are associated with the need to show the genesis of the processes and phenomena, and given the long trends in the transformation of national higher education" [Finikov & Sharov, 2014: p. 6]. For example, corruption is mentioned only three times. One can understand the logic of the authors, which is governed by the following framework of analysis that does not discern corruption. Although, can one consider an analysis of the European integration of HEU as completed without referring to the phenomenon of corruption in education?
It is obvious that it is almost impossible to succeed in modernizing HEU without a thorough self-examination and self-criticism. The European values defended with blood at Euromaidan 2013 require true self-assessment of the society for their implementation. Events of Euromaidan are called Revolution of Dignity. The latter expresses the core of modern virtues that expresses a human self-esteem. Modernization of HEU requires an honest look at itself. For this, it is necessary not only to perform deftly analytics but also be brave to tell yourself the truth. In our opinion, the use of the concept of hybridity in the study of the causes of inhibited modernization of HEU would significantly strengthen the self-vision.
Antropotechniques in Higher Education as an Attack on Post-repressive Inertia
The methodological guidelines of the anthropotechnic turn of the contemporary philosophy provide the effective tools to eliminate the educational pathologies from HEU on the basis of its self-reflection and self-criticism. The pedagogical component of the anthropotechnic turn according to P. Sloterdijk is defined as "gripping the roots of habits" [Sloterdijk, 2013: p. 169] that defines the educational imperative of changing the human nature. The turn in understanding the human nature offered by P. Sloterdijk is based on criticism of compensatory tradition of philosophical anthropology, the ascending point that is the thesis on a human as an insufficient, inferior and imperfect being. The origin of this conception of a human is found in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, for whom a human is a "chance product" and is nothing but a certain location of individual impulses, which colliding with one another, create human life [Klossowski, 1997: p. 26]. P. Sloterdijk suggests that modern education should take control of the chance. That is why pedagogy is defined as "applied mechanics" [Sloterdijk, 2013: p. 198]. He affirms, that " because the inertial quality of the habitual had been explicitly understood in the twilight of the educators during the first millennium B.C., this was naturally followed by the resolution to take control of habit in statu nascendi in order to turn the former principle of resistance into a factor of co-operation" [Sloterdijk, 2013: p. 198-199]. It is not accidental, that metaphor of purification signifies the process of developing of appropriate mechanisms of "cleansing" habits. That is to say to get rid of vital guidelines and practices that enhance the internal inertia of HE.
It is known that effect of repressive trauma results in the awakening of "the dark side" of the human nature. Greed, selfishness, laziness, revenge, jealousy, indifference resist to educational innovation no less than social factors. Due to the local decoding of "dark side" of the human nature, its re-demonization becomes possible. Sloterdijk
believes that the latter is possible due to de-automatization of previous habits, habitus practices, influential prejudices, and ideas. Such de-automatization of certain local authentic traditions becomes possible due to re-automatization of those educational practices that promote the implementation of the human desire for perfection and completeness.
Unlike the Christian project of transformation of the human nature, the anthropotechnic educational practices are fundamentally focused on specific practical context and human cognitive abilities. An occurrence is determined by certain not only socio-cultural conditions (dominant institutions and ideas) but hexis, habitus, doxa and biases of the particular society. For Ukrainian and Western societies, these specific determinants are different, though the focus on basic European values and ideals coincide.
"The Bloodylands" of Ukraine as Fertile Ground for Educational Hybridity
Complex and contradictory path of modernization of HEU goes through its "bloodylands" [Snyder, 2010]. The crushing Moloch of both types of totalitarian regimes — Nazi and Soviet — has abundantly sprinkled the Ukrainian land with blood and suffering of tremendous losses. They became "bloodylands" because they were caught in the zone of massive violence of Stalinism and Nazism a historically unprecedented scale. The double totalitarian trauma is complicated also by the colonial past of Ukraine. The effects of three repressive practices still block the movement of HEU towards modernization. It was found out that without significant human effort to eradicate them, their tracks cannot be erased. Instead, having got into the context of market relations, they have demonstrated a flexible capacity for hybridization. The totalitarian has taken root firmly in the grip of the bureaucracy of HEU, while the colonial shows itself in its complexes of inferiority and humiliation. As a result of their hybridization, corruption has blossomed in the "bloody lands" with lush flowers of plagiarism, diploma "mills", public disregard, loss of motivation to teach and learn, the humiliation of mind. Thus, the project of the modernization of HEU will long remain an unfinished project until the educational space will get clean of traumatic consequences of the triple repression. Mainly it refers to the anthropological and cognitive consequences that arise through various habits, traditions, identities, perceptions, feelings, values, attitudes that nourish corruption, killing the modernization of HEU.
Romanticizing and Nostalgia as Hazardous Factors of Hybridization
Though it is paradoxical, but instead of its own purification and self-criticism, HEU is afflicted by the desire to preserve "its own traditions" and search for the "own Harvards and Oxfords". The remains of colonial and totalitarian systems in HEU are perceived as its own originality and uniqueness. The danger of such narcissism is romanticization and glorification of reality that actualize the pre-modern practices and forms of education. Nostalgic motives about the "effectiveness" of Soviet HE contribute to hybridization of totalitarian colonial educational elements into the system of global education, creating its illusory and imitative substitutes.
Cheating, plagiarism, poor regulatory provision, strong administrative pressure, imitation of autonomy, isolation from the real needs of the society make HEU locally
unique, but globally unattractive. Hybridization of postcolonial, post-totalitarian, modern and global educational components creates dangerous hodgepodges that threaten the revival of neo-colonialism, authoritarianism, de-modernization and provincialization of HEU.
Undoubtedly, the path of the modernization of HEU is through the involvement of international educational institutions and programs and the Bologna process. However, implementation of these intentions does not reach the desired goal. The reason for this is not so much that flawed legal framework of education policy or lack of activity in the implementation of educational reforms but rather the strong inertia of the agents of its implementation. The overcoming of the inertia can take place on the basis of such self-reflection and self-criticism, which takes into account the anthropological nature of the own illusions and myths. One of these illusions is accession of HEU to the Bologna process.
Hybridity of Higher Education: The Case of Ukraine The Vicious Circle of Modernization of Ukrainian Education
The diagnosis of the age we live is hard as well as vital task for contemporary social sciences [Terepyshchyi, 2015]. The present-day age is a time of the "guest" cultures offence to the domestic ones (especially at European Union territory): "An education system will naturally reflect the norms of the host society, within which the minorities have to function and will therefore need to learn enough of the language and mores to be able to do this. For them, the question is the degree of adaptation required and the extent to which their own culture can also be retained. For the schools, the question is how far they can or should take account of cultural differences, how much variation they can accept and whether they should seek to assimilate the minorities or encourage them to retain and develop their own cultures, or something in between" [Grant, 1997:
p. 24].
The real political result of this offence is a clash of global and local identities. The national states loses ones control over the national identity formation. Usually any attempts to manage the processes of national self-comprehension cause the conflicts between the economic and political interests of the governments: "Globalization forces nation-states to focus more on acting as economic growth promoters for their national economies than as protectors of the national identity or a nationalist project" [Carnoy, 1999: p. 20].
Starting from Magna Charta Universitatum [MCU, 1988], Bologna Convention [EHEA, 1999] we can find the documantal evidences the EHE understands oneself as overtaken one relatedly to the multiculturally oriented American higher education. Magna Charta Universitatum was positioned as an agreement for saving the traditions of universities at the social conditons when even the term "university" is doubtful. However, the real importance of the European academic dialog was comprehended only ten years later and the administrative reform started at the Europe: "We must in particular look at the objective of increasing the international competitiveness of the European system of higher education. The vitality and efficiency of any civilization can be measured by the appeal that its culture has for other countries" [EHEA, 1999]. The administrative nature of this reform is proved by the fact that was started by signatures of the top-level administrative officials (Ministers of Education). Mentioned reform was oriented on the transformation of political mechanisms of the EHEA.
The Bologna reform at Ukraine had the same administrative nature as well as at Europe. Unlike European countries, Bologna reform was initiated not only externally, but also one was caused by the need of modernization. The truth is that Ukrainian education hasn't passed the modernization after USSR break in 1991. That is why Bologna process for Ukraine is not only an administrative intervention but also a real chance to overcome the post-soviet (post-totalitarian) heritage at the HE system.
It is a symbolic date, May 19, 2016, important for HE passed indistinguishably. It was 11 years ago in now distant 2005 at a conference in the Norwegian city of Bergen where Ukraine officially joined the "Bologna process". It is symptomatic that there are no conferences or other public discussion of results. However, it is accession to the Bologna Process, which is the only truly significant event in the educational landscape of the independent Ukraine. It is possibility to perform modernization in the same way like Europe did. A characteristic coincidence is the fact that the reforms in education are almost the only visible result of both Ukrainian revolutions of the early XXI century — the Orange Revolution (2004) and the Revolution of Dignity (2014).
To understand the reason why Ukrainian Bologna process became hybridized, we have to take into account the historical aspect of HE development. Becoming a member of Bologna process, Ukraine become a "battlefield" of the following contradiction: the reform was addressed not to European-level educational system, but to the Soviet university tradition and one's rudiments: "Soviet higher education represented a very unusual organizational construction that had an umbilical connection to the communist party ideology and Soviet autocracy" [Kuraev, 2015].
Since Ukraine received the independence (1991), the national HE system had a formation processes. However, mentioned processes had a cosmetic nature instead of the substantial one. New standards of education had national elements (Ukrainian language, history, traditions and so on), but the organizational form still being Soviet. That is why we have reasons to say about the clash of the Soviet traditions with new global trends: "Improved standardization of university performance was one of the reasons for the shift towards institutional differentiation. However, the process involved a complicated battle between post-Soviet institutional legacies and the new imperatives of global science" [Oleksiyenko, 2014].
The Ukrainian situation is not the exceptional one. The HE system at the other postsoviet counties passed through the same processes. The countries such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia reformed one's models of HE fast by means of decentralization approaches, support of academic autonomy and academic mobility, update of the forms and content of courses and so on, but other ones leaved at the influence of the Soviet HE tradition: "Post-Soviet countries such as Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine maintained a unitary system of higher education in which the distinction between university education and higher professional education is often not clear. The Ukrainian system of higher education inherited features from the Soviet model" [Hladchenko, 2016].
Preparation for the accession of Ukraine to the "Bologna process" started at these contradictory conditions. In particular, a number of publications was released in mass media, professional publications appeared, and training manuals were developed [Kremen, 2003; 2004]. However, the result (sub-items of the Bologna declaration) was achieved namely by a member of the "Orange" coalition, Minister S.Nikolayenko. Numerous public discussions and professional publications after the event were
almost exclusively bright optimistic that was in good match with the general public post-revolutionary euphoria [Nikolaenko, 2007]. The future of HEU and the future of Ukraine as a whole were seen in bright colors.
However, over time, starting with critical publications of 2006-2007, the "red" color gradually disappeared from the palette of light colors. Public discussion and professional publications were more and more clearly focused on the difficulties of implementing the Bologna process in Ukraine, where symptomatically came to be called the "Bologna system", in true spirit of post-totalitarian thinking. Among the main problems mentioned most often: corruption; bureaucratization; low quality of education; inadaptability of the Bologna reform to individual sectors of education (e.g. medical).
Today, after the Revolution of Dignity (2014), the reform of HE is demontrsated by the highest rank politicians as nearly the main achievement, which is embodied in the new progressive law (VRU, 2014). Although it was adopted during the tenure of Minister S.Kvit, but the preparation of the law was carried out during the tenure of the previous managers. During and after the adoption of the law both the ex-minister [Kvit, 2014], and the President of Ukraine [Poroshenko, 2014] repeatedly emphasized its importance. Special attention to legislative changes in HE is given in the Annual Address of the President of Ukraine to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine "On the internal and external situation of Ukraine in 2015" [Gorbulin & Vlasyuk, 2015].
At that time, more and louder sound the voices of critics. We can observe a similar scenario of transfer from euphoria to criticism regarding the new Law of Ukraine "On Higher Education". Among the major problems that are often heard are the mentioned ones: corruption, bureaucratization and so on.
As one can see, 11 years elapsed, but the issues remained the same. Even more — they eventually have grown sharper. These considerations lead us to the key question: why does the reform in HE usually end with nothing despite the high initial expectations, hopes and advances to the international community? In our opinion, the reason for this is: unproductive hybridity. The combination of cultural phenomena of our time, which go beyond it, has important implications for HE. On the one hand, the involvement into the Bologna process is an example of present-day European standards. On the other hand the dominance of non-modern and pre-modern educational elements (colonial, Soviet, national) are deeply rooted in Ukrainian education. Thus, liberal democratic Bologna models transform themselves into unattractive "mutants", which are not typical for either progressive global strategy, not even for traditional local education practices.
During the decade of the Bologna reforms implementation some myths have appeared in the academic environment; here are some of them:
- Test system for knowledge evaluation (earning the ratings) is a part of the Bologna process;
- The student has to study himself / herself, while teachers are given only the function of consultants and examiners;
- To attend lectures and seminars is not obligatory;
- The Bologna process is possible without academic mobility.
This list is far from being complete, but we do not aim to analyze all "Bologna mythology". Our task is to reveal examples that show the process of hybrid-mutation of advanced Bologna sprouts on the Ukrainian soil.
The most characteristic example of unproductive hybridity is the perception of the Bologna process or the Bologna reforms as the Bologna system. The unimportant, according to many, modification of the name shows the depth of misunderstanding of the essence. As conceived by its initiators, the Bologna process is to simplify the life, strengthen the integration and remove obstacles, yet in Ukraine it complicates the lives of students and teachers, promotes the disintegration and creates additional difficulties. For example, according to the main documents of the Bologna process there are three main stages of HE:
1. Bachelor;
2. Master;
3. Doctor of Philosophy.
Although, 11 years have passed since Ukraine signed the Bologna Declaration, this model remains unattainable, because according to the Law of Ukraine "On Higher Education" (2014) the modified old and curbesome system remains. For example, Article 5.2 states: "Getting higher education at every level of higher education involves successful implementation of the appropriate educational <...> or scientific program, which is the basis for the award of the corresponding degree of higher education:
1) Junior Bachelor;
2) Bachelor;
3) Master;
4) Doctor of Philosophy;
5) Doctor of Science" [MSE, 2014].
There is a fact that in Ukraine they still continue to train for the qualification level of "Specialist" (even in 2016), as a result, instead of the 3-degree system we have a hybrid 6-degree one.
After accession to the Bologna process in 2005, against the background of absent understanding of its necessity by the majority of teachers, students and administrators, the process began that can be boldly called pseudo-Bologna. In the early years, the majority of the discussions were caused by the need to introduce the two degrees "Bachelor" and "Master" instead of the degree "specialist", which is usual and understandable for a Soviet person. With the absence of both motivation and financial resources for the development of quality diversified master programs, the following terrible practice arose. One year was mechanically "cut" from the five-year specialist training course. The first four years received the name "bachelor"; the last 5th year became "Master's degree program". The "Master's degree program" was often entered mechanically and without any examinations by all who attended the "Bachelor program". Add to that the almost complete absence of competition of the master's programs. Indeed, everything possible was done to complicate for a student the transition to another master's program, which is different from that offered at alma mater's department, where the he or she studied at the bachelor program.
Only after some years of such "Bologna" reform the education administrators and teachers began to understand the logic of the 2-level education. However, the society still does not have a complete understanding of what is "a bachelor" and what is "a master", which positions they can occupy. According to experts, the majority of employers do not understand where graduates with the qualification of "Bachelor" can work. Neither employers, nor the society recognize bachelor as
completed HE, which creates unhealthy pressure on masters programs, to which those students get who have no idea of the research. However, because they cannot find a job, then additional years of the master program is an effective shock absorber for the Ukrainian youth unemployment. Overall, Table 1 shows some examples of the benefits and challenges of implementing the Bologna process in Ukraine.
Table 1. Examples of benefits and challenges of implementing the Bologna process in Ukraine
Criteria Advantages Challenges
Institutional and administrative Preventing corruption at all levels of educational institutions; clarity of the system for the international community; transparency and validity of decisionmaking The inertia of traditional institutions, the threat of defamation of traditional degrees and institutions, which award them, in the eyes of the public
Academic A clear relationship and succession of different cycles of education, the ability to complete the education at any stage without losing the possibility of further education The need for radical revision of curricula, consolidation courses, development of courses at students' choice
Social Better opportunities for accountability of educational institutions to the general public, transparency to stakeholders, prompt provision of information to beneficiaries The issue of unemployment due to discharge of teachers and administrative staff from employment
Financial Spending cuts for duplicated functions, ineffective training programs, simulation of training and research Additional costs associated with the paper work and training the staff of universities to new methods of work
Unnoticeable and seemingly not fundamental "stylistic transformation" of the Bologna process into the Bologna system has quite fundamental negative consequences for Ukrainian universities. That is not a complete list of them [Terepyshchyi, 2010]:
- Outdated standards of HE that do not regulate, but rather create chaos in the activities of universities;
- Unreasonable number of training streams disciplines and specialty courses, which content is duplicated, and the only difference of which is the name;
- Non-recognition of "Bachelor" as a qualification by the public, its undemaned status for the Ukrainian economy;
- Unprecedented spread of HE, the parameters of which cannot be explained with the global trends of the knowledge society;
- Gap in understanding of the purpose of HE by teachers, employers, students, their parents and the state;
- Discrepancy in understanding the levels of "Specialist" and "Master": on the one hand, they are recognized as equivalent (are made equivalent), and on the other hand, they are accredited by different levels, III and IV respectively;
- Excessive complexity in nostrification of documents on HE, which complicates mobility of both students and teachers;
- Simulation of creation of colleges on the basis of former vocational schools, equating them to higher educational institutions of I-II accreditation levels.
An illustrative example of hybridity is the national modification of the European Credit Transfer-Accumulation System (ECTS), which acquired here the form of a credit-modular system (CMS). Even before the official introduction of the CMS [MSE, 2005] "based on" ECTS, thoughts were expressed concerning the ill-conceived reform [Andrushchenko, 2004]. However, they were not heard.
Consequently, distortion of the essence the Bologna reforms have entailed reduced trust and growth of mutual accusations of the academic community, students and government officials responsible for education. The teachers are mostly concerned about the growth of the paper reporting, the increasing load without increased remuneration for teaching and scientific work. Students express doubts about the possibility of improving the quality of education without real implementation of academic mobility and flexibility of educational standards. The officials are concerned about the irrational use of budget resources, decreasing transparency and accountability of "feudal autonomous" universities compared to a centralized system.
Such features like creating a system of monitoring the quality of training and introduction of disciplines chosen by the student have not been used. Instead, there is a formal compliance with the requirements in the spirit of the "best" examples of Soviet bureaucratic machine. Given the growing requirements to teachers from the university administration and the Ministry of Education (for example, for acquiring the degree of associate professor, professor) without adequate resource support no real changes occurred in this system. On the other hand, as a defensive reaction, violent simulation of research and teaching activities has intensified at both the faculty and department level and at the level of universities as the system in the whole.
The negative example was the creation of the credit-modular system, which had nothing to do with the Bologna process, but it was born under the banner of it. Based on recommendations on the implementation of the CMS, which were developed by the Ministry of Education of Ukraine and prescriptively forwarded to all institutions of HE, multi-credit-modular "systems" were developed for all disciplines. The conferences, meetings of university presidents, meetings of academic councils were conducted. Manuals, standards and forms of documentation were frantically developed. "Creative paper work" swept universities as avalanche, diverting both teachers and students from the actual scientific and educational activities. At the same time, the concept of academic transfer disappeared from most documents. On the contrary, opportunities to change the field of training, department or university have decreased, breaking any transfer logic. The analysis of credit-module system is briefly presented in Table 2.
The practice of implementation of the Ukrainian credit-modular system has demonstrated that strengths and opportunities were not used, while gaps and threats by contrast came true. As a result of the implementation of dubious results of the CMS and with the entry into force of the new Law of Ukraine "On Education", this "hydra" was abolished on September 17, 2014 [MSE, 2014].
The worst is that such instances discredit those manifestations of quality changes, which have intensified in the HEU since 2005. Constant talks about the Bologna reforms without their actual implementation does not allow nostalgia for the totalitarian Soviet education to decease in the public mind; stating that the Soviet education was "the best in the world"; which, in its turn, is used by some political forces on the eve of next elections.
Table 2. SWOT-analysis of Ukrainian credit-module system
Strengths Weaknesses Opportu- Threats
nities
Improving financial Additional Creation of Irrational bureaucratization,
control over the activities financial a system substitution of notions, distortion
of the universities by resources for for internal and defamation of the Bologna
the state. Increased development monitoring reforms. The growth of mistrust
organizational control of a complete of the and recriminations by participants
over the activities of set of training quality of of the educational process.
students, teachers, methodologi- training.
departments, faculties cal support to
within universities. train special-
ists: curricula,
programs of
disciplines,
information
and educa-
tional support,
documents
for accounting
and evaluation
of academic
achievements
etc.
Intensification of Distraction Introduction Formal observation of
students' independent of time of the of subjects requirements. Teeming simulation
work during the faculty and for choice of work at all institutional levels.
semester. administrative of students Duplication of functions.
staff to through
perform making
formal up an
requirements individual
that are not curriculum.
associated
with the
quality of the
educational
process and
the quality of
research at the
university
In parallel, against the politically opportunistic decisions, the escapism and self-complacency of most of the academic community have emerged (on assumption that nothing depends on us). Years of experience of simulating reforms have led to despondency and marginalization of any attempt to make a real change in education. The only drawback, which all pay attention to, is called lack of funding. At the same time, the ineffective use of these funds draws much less attention.
Of course, the Ukrainian academic community, like its counterparts in the Bologna Process member states, expects implementation of the decisions of the Ministerial Conference in Yerevan [EHEA, 2015], which may give new impulses. However, the
hope that we can find a way for the future the only with outside help and without our own efforts is not worth it. The Bologna process has been implemented in our country since 2005; but the recognition of degrees and qualifications as well as academic mobility, and working system of the ECTS still remain "a dead letter". Ukraine should abandon the practice of self-deception, should get rid of corruption in education, and should implement real reform. This is the only way for the Bologna process to be perceived in 2020 not as a discarded hybrid project, but as a successful tool for reforming the HEU. Only is this way Ukrainian HE system can break the "circle" of modernization and become more visible on the global educational landscape.
Challenges of Hybridity to Academic Mobility
Previously, we have considered the particular features of hybridization of HEU, resulting from unproductive combination of post-totalitarian, post-colonial and liberal-democratic principles in education. In our opinion, it is appropriate to consider how hybridization in HE impacts the nature of the integration of national educational area into EHEA. A key element to evaluate the progress of the mentioned integration is to determine the degree of performance of academic mobility programs, because it is a key principle to form the EHEA and the European Research Area (ERA), providing wide opportunities for free movement of European students, teachers and researchers in these areas in order to accumulate on a personal level the academic and general capacity of development of national systems of HE and increase their contribution to social and economic development of their countries [EHEA, 1999].
Previously we identified fusion phenomena of HEU, including crisis phenomena in provision of transfer of education, and in this section we will try to analyze the anthropological principles arising as fertile ground for cultivating hybrid phenomena in contemporary education.
Interest in academic mobility in the context of research of hybridity of HEU is also caused by the fact that contemporary civilization has come to such a level of its organization, when individuals and society itself acquire the mobile nature, creating a range of new social relations [Svyrydenko, 2014]. Based on this perspective, performance analysis of all forms of mobility has heuristic nature for social sciences; while to analyze the complex social dynamics of the HEU, which is in the state of hybridization, the analysis of acts of academic mobility seems productive as it defines the ontology of the Bologna process.
In our opinion, academic mobility processes are not sufficiently studied theoretically in terms of finding the underlying principles of this phenomenon; connection of processes of participation in academic exchanges with the processes of transformation of personality in a different academic environment; connection of education with social transformations etc. At the periphery of research interest are complex socio-cultural and anthropological phenomena that make up the ontology of the phenomenon of academic mobility [Svyrydenko, 2015].
When we talk about the phenomenon of academic mobility, we understand that the desire to transform oneself in a different academic and cultural environment is immersion into "productive" academic mobility with its complicated nature of the course, with the need to continually construct one's own ordinariness in bi-cultural (at least) conditions; and its goal is personal transformation and growth, self-actualization and implementation of the own educational project in terms of positive freedom.
In contrast to it, compliance with the formal requirements of carrying out the academic pilgrimage in order to reduce the anthropological stress of the own stay in a different academic environment, or for touristic, financial or other reasons, gives grounds to speak about immersion into academic mobility in its unproductive, hybridized sense, in which the processes of transformation of the individual, self-development, creativity or freedom are driven to the periphery. The concept of the EHEA-2020 states that academic mobility is an important characteristic of this educational area; and each country should promote sharing of its ideas, the search for new types, so that in 2020 at least 20% of students would graduate having the experience of learning abroad [EHEA, 2009]. It is logical to imagine that participation in academic mobility programs will soon emerge as a mandatory requirement for graduation, but a part of Ukrainian students will seek to implement it in an unproductive formal manner.
As of today, Ukrainian academic mobility in its content is replaced by academic tourism, when an opportunity to visit another country becomes the dominant factor for the participation in it, displacing to the periphery of this process such decisive in our view components, as accession to the achievements of other academic environment and culture in general, the development of multicultural thinking skills, improvement of multilingual communication skills in an academic environment, updating of subject knowledge and so on. Indeed, in itself a trip to study or training in another country does not give a positive effect if the student has no internal readiness for self-development and improvement. Academic mobility was virtually absent in times of the USSR, extended to the countries of the socialist camp and had an inter-coalition unproductive nature as a tool for solving political problems. The contemporary academic mobility is trying to get rid of the closed status. However, still in the course of its implementation, the guidelines emerge aimed at the low level of partnerships, closedness towards the achievement of alternative schools.
Thus, it is valid to understand the phenomenon of academic mobility in the context of two possible "scenarios" of its course — productive (transformative, intense, contradictory, responsible etc.) and unproductive (hybrid), which can be characterized by the notions of "closed", "escape from freedom", "avoidance of responsibility", "formal compliance" etc. We proceed from the position that the renewal of a person, anthropological transformations, going beyond the boundaries, where the person has been before an act of academic mobility should actually be the real purpose and criteria for performance evaluation of the academic mobility implementation.
The authors formulated the concept of "academic mobility from", the essence of which is to understand academic mobility as liberation from the constraints of the national education system, and therefore it represents receiving negative freedom by a participant. "Academic mobility from" (by analogy with "freedom from", with negative freedom) also appears as a result of hybridization of HEU: declarative nature of reforms aimed at strengthening the objectives of the Bologna process does not allow students to materialize their potentials in the domestic system, and the channels of academic mobility in reality are of little effect and complicated due to red tape obstacles.
When considering return of a participant of academic exchange programs, in our opinion, academic mobility should be understood as integral chain "departure — stay — return" when the fact of the return is a conscious step of implementation of a forward-looking social project, and is not perceived in terms of nostalgia, failure and
so on. A participant of academic exchange programs, returning home, deliberately falls in a contradiction within the native culture: it has become unusual for them, and they grew unprepared for the realities and specific contexts, into which they get after being in other cultures. Thus, by the concept of "academic mobility for" we will try to conceptualize the connection with receiving a qualitatively different level of freedom (similar to the "freedom for") by a person, when the academic mobility acquires the status of efficiency. Therefore, a person not only actualizes the own creative potential, but also takes responsibility to actualize the potential of renovation of the national society.
Participation in the programs of academic mobility appears for Ukrainian students as a unique opportunity for productive revision and updating of their individual anthropological principles. A prerequisite is a conscious development by the students of their introspection skills, so that the specified update in the conditions of other culture and academic tradition would be of a productive nature, on the one hand, not turning into setting to nil with subsequent filling. As another pole may appear the excessive closedness of a participant of academic mobility programs for upgrade in the form of unproductive (hybridized) academic mobility.
In our view, an important role in the renewal process (and sometimes radical revision) is assigned to cognitive component of unfolding the academic mobility, which, in our opinion, can get its problematization using the concepts of flexible and rigid thinking. We believe that for meaningful update, a person must perform efficiently controlled revision of anthropological strategies, to be able to grasp a complex social reality, to quickly analyze the existing values and authority and the ones proposed by another culture. To implement the phenomenon of academic mobility in a productive way, its participants should be aware of the threat of discrimination that may occur at their initiative, be aware of the influence of totalitarian cultural practices on the mentality of the members of the academic community and, being in a state of self-reflection, seek to go beyond existing boundaries, update oneself and transform oneself, eradicating manifestations of corruption consciousness, inferiority complex or, conversely, undue bias to the Ukrainian context.
Practical Implications of Hybridity at Higher Education of Ukraine
Post-totalitarian and post-Soviet mentality of the Ukrainian society makes actual a wide range of discriminatory manifestations, dogmatic thinking, prejudice and stereotypes in all spheres of life of society. However, the specific nature is acquired by these trends in HEU. Without claiming the explication to be complete, we will try to diagnose the key ones of them. The post-totalitarian influence on HEU was properly discovered at the international educational discourse [Kolasky, 1968; Koshmanova & Ravchyna, 2008; Kudryavtseva, 1992].
We would like to note that hybridization in education is also focused largely on the idea of the Ukrainian people (including members of the academic community) of the local national uniqueness, which acquires the character of provincialism. On the one hand, we recognize the need to preserve the achievements of Ukrainian education (and the whole culture) in the XXI century. However, we maintain the need to implement theoretically grounded synthesis of cultural forms and traditions with their alternatives on the basis of openness when the aim of this activity becomes the search of productive patterns in certain subject areas. Excessive dominance of the local
over the global, which is not the result of self-reflection and critical evaluation, but is a manifestation of rigidity, and gives grounds for materialization of negative scenarios for further development of both the Ukrainian society as a whole, and HE in particular.
Globalization has long had the status of objective and inevitable phenomenon, therefore, Ukraine should choose either a productive way of integration into the global society, or choose the path of unproductive isolation, showing the reluctance to reform on the background of overuse of the narrative "unique Ukraine". Indeed, in the HEU the transmission of finished forms of culture still remains a widespread phenomenon in teaching, while experience of working "on the edge" of cultural forms is practically absent in schools. H. Giroux, one of the founders of the border (transgressive) pedagogy, suggests that it is necessary to overcome the emphasis on the own culture, attracting numerous references that make up the different cultural codes, languages and experiences in order to discard the existing boundaries and create new ones [Giroux, 1991]. However, in HEU the provincialism with an excessive, unjustified and counterproductive emphasis on the local, on the national still remains one of the determinants.
One of the key manifestations of discrimination prevalent in HE is sexism. Specific manifestations of it in education are a reflection of the social structure inherited from the Soviet times [Kolasky, 1968; Matusevych, 2014]. Indeed, just as in the Soviet times so today the gender inequality remains widespread: students face discriminatory harassment from teachers; and in the educational environment the career path is determined by the level of perception of the idea of gender equality by the managers of universities. The same ideas we find at the research of I. Silova [Silova & Magno, 2004]. These trends signal about the need to revise the Ukrainian culture experience, individual self-reflection aimed at purification of the academic environment from uncivilized tendencies that are contrary to the global trend of seeking productive tolerant coexistence in the human community. In this matter it is difficult to disagree with P. Freire, who claimed that an inherent feature of correct thinking is strong denial of each and all forms of discrimination, because racial, class or gender bias threatens the very essence of human dignity and pose a radical negation on democracy [Freire, 1998]. Indeed, discrimination on one or another ground is unacceptable for productive deployment of academic mobility processes. In our opinion, academic mobility appears as a phenomenon, in which there is a threat to realization of discriminatory manifestations (because it unfolds in the multicultural educational environment); and the performance of this phenomenon depends on the ability to eliminate discriminatory manifestations.
Another destructive phenomenon of the HEU is discriminatory phenomenon of ageism, which acquires specific features as result of hybridization of education. At the entry level for access to HE the institutions create unfavorable conditions for the elderly, violating inalienable human right to education. There are occurrences of disrespect to older teachers, who through partiality of students are given the peremptory status of carriers of outdated ideas and experience oppression. At the level of organizational management the power in universities remains mostly in the hands of older generation, thus acquiring feudal character, while the young people are discriminated. At the same time, we are aware of the magnitude of the problem of eradicating age discrimination, because even the experience of the UK, an advance democracy, shows that awareness of the issue of ageism and a constructive attempt to overcome it starts from 1998
[Mountfield & Chambers, 2009]. Thus, Ukraine has a difficult path ahead both for the normative embodiment of the concept of overcoming ageism and the way of its implementation, which is impossible without rethinking by the Ukrainians a number of counter-productive approaches in the educational tradition.
We also consider it appropriate to draw the attention to the manifestations of this type of discrimination in HEU, as speciesism. Environmental awareness, noospheric values, protection of rights of animals are appearing as an imperative for the development of human civilization, but in HEU the norm is still to wear furs, which shows the rejection by teachers of the mentioned values of the society at the present stage of its development . Against the worldwide spread of trends to protect animal rights, volunteerism, vegetarian lifestyle, in the academic environment in Ukraine the norm is still to wear furs and other manifestations of species discrimination [Matviychuk, 2015]. To ensure accuracy, we would note that wearing furs plays as a demonstration of social status of the academic environment, but at the same time, it is a demonstration of the life philosophy, degree of perception of values of the new quality of society. It is logical to accept the teacher as a model that continually demonstrates how internalized is the knowledge that he or she conveys. Yet, in the Ukrainian context it is rather demonstrated that the teacher is only a repeater of knowledge and not anthropologically akin to progressive ideas of contemporary humanity. It is true that hypertrophied consumer outlook, misconceptions that luxuriating and demonstration of tangible achievements can show others the personal success is inherited by Ukrainians as the legacy of the totalitarian regime. The West has turned away long ago from that. One should not forget that acting as academic exchange program participants, people who show such uncivilized manifestations discredit the Ukrainian society and culture.
As we have already noted, the command-and-control social structure of the Soviet times is one of the determinants of contemporary hybrid phenomena in Ukrainian education [Oleksiyenko, 2014; Round & Rogers, 2009]. Known fact is the high level of corruption in the system of HE. In our opinion, it is worth while noting such a specific form of corruption, which in the domestic society is entitled "clanism". In international humanitarian discourse this phenomenon is described by the term "nepotism". We diagnosed a deep gulf between academic traditions of the advanced countries and Ukraine: it is unacceptable for advanced countries (not in terms of laws, but in terms of academic ethics) that members of one family were in managerial posts of one organization, but the Ukrainian reality the situation is if not the norm, but at least a commonplace. The decision on the participation of certain persons in programs of academic mobility in Ukrainian educational institutions in most cases is made by the managers not always on a transparent basis, taking into account the subjective (and corruption) factors.
The outlined above "isms" of HEU (provincialism, sexism, ageism, speciesism, and nepotism) indicate deep civilizational backwardness of the Ukrainian society, which was resulted from "conservation" of the way of life and thinking of homo soveticus, who is the product of the totalitarian ideology implementation. This backlog has gained its specific form through strengthening totalitarian social order by inferiority complex against the backdrop of Russia's imperial ambitions, which historically accompanied Ukraine for several centuries. We do not claim to come up with a complete list of "isms" of HEU considering the volume of survey and its logic, but we tried to show heredity
of these unproductive educational practices, their determination by anthropological factors of the Ukrainian post-totalitarian society, to demonstrate prospectivity of moving away from them in a more civilized direction.
Conclusions
The hybridity of HEU reveals itself in various versions of crossbreeding postcolonial, post-totalitarian, liberal-democratic and national educational trends. The image of "bloodylands" exemplifies the depth of traumatic repressive practices in HEU. While the image of a hybrid mutant represents negative connotations of hybridization of HEU, productive and pathological mixtures of different education elements in HEU become possible due to globalization. Maximum expanding the boundaries of the interaction between different educational systems, globalization brings together in HEU mutually excluding elements, e.g., of totalitarian education, which by its nature is autarchic and closed, and of the liberal one, the essential elements of which are openness and focus on market demand; or the colonial system with its direction to domination of the imperial culture and national culture as the one that seeks its own recognition. This results in the hybridity of HEU, which is viable, but not promising. The main product of such pathological crossbreeding becomes corruption. This notion means not only illegal enrichment through bribes or embezzlement of public funds but the distortion of academic standards and the standards of education. Corruption entails a significant loss of moral values and professional motivation for HEU. As a result, there is overlapping of post-traumatic and corruption factors in the form of new hydride formations.
Self-reflection and self-criticism of HEU should be mainly focused on detecting pathological formations, but not turn into narcissism and romanticizing of the reality. The anthropotechnic turn can be considered as a productive theoretical tool for this analysis. Turning the attention to the anthropological component of the educational process reveals the nature of its sluggishness. The nature of the latter shows the methods of purification from those traditions, habits, perceptions, myths, illusions, and sentiments, which block the path of HEU into the European educational space, thus suppressing its own strong potential.
Hybridization of the Bologna process in Ukraine has clearly demonstrated to us that Ukrainian education is at a critical point. Our situation is specific because without canceling the previous standards we borrow new, mimicking the observation of both the first and the second. There are many questions that hang in the air unanswered and new legislative initiatives not only do not untangle old issues, but also create additional element of chaos and uncertainty. It is not clear whether the Bologna process is still relevant after 11 years of implementation in Ukraine. Does Ukraine retain its interest in the Bologna process? For example, if to take into account the cancellation of credit-modular system. This is especially pending since such discussions are not unique only for our country. "Is the Process still relevant? Has it died?" — such questions are raised in the last document of the European Students' Union (ESU, 2015). Ukrainian students and teachers are equally skeptical about the Bologna process. Therefore the question of whether Ukraine is ready to fulfill all the Bologna reforms, remains open.
In addition to the survey of hybrid (sometimes mutation) phenomena in HEU, the authors outlined the phenomena that contribute to the implementation of academic mobility in its unproductive (hybrid) meaning. We maintained the idea that provision
of productive principles to the processes of academic mobility can improve HE system as a whole, taking into account the ontological importance of the academic mobility for the present status of HEU. The conception is proposed that unproductive (hybrid) academic mobility emerges as a result of reluctance of a mobility entity to transform itself, to develop mobility, to expand fruitful communication with representatives of other cultures and thus go beyond the own culture in general, remaining too much locked on the local, choosing rigidity instead of flexibility as determinant for committing acts of mobility.
Common, however, little acknowledged in the Ukrainian educational tradition are corruption (nepotism etc.), discrimination (sexism, ageism, speciesism etc.) phenomena, which, on the one hand, are hereditary (are a product of the Soviet totalitarian practices), on the other hand, serve as a brake on the way to productive civilizational development of the Ukrainian society and its system of HE.
In present-day conditions the task of education is to overcome local resistance of psychosomatic and mental properties that block the production of the type of personality capable to cope with threats of barbarism in the society and with its own dehumanization. The main sign of barbarism should be considered as the denial of the need to subordinate the life to the ideas of reason (laws, regulations, and rules), which defines the fundamental guideline of the European culture. In Ukraine, it is barbarism that is waging the war against of her intention to become a European country. Signs of dehumanization of contemporary man are not that a man has become less humane than it was before, but in the fact that a person cannot overcome the own laziness and remain unchanged. The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine gives HE a great chance for change, the implementation of which depends largely on whether we have enough forces to overcome the own inertia and look at ourselves in the mirror of the truth.
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