Maria Smirnova, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Theory and Practice of Translation of Mariupol State University, met the Polish experience in implementing and educational reform during an internship at the universities of Warsaw and Krakow.
The trip was organized in the framework of the Ukrainian-Polish project ‘Innovative University and Leadership. Phase IV: communication strategies and university-school relationships’. Its goal is to prepare academic leaders focused on the study and construction of new models of relations between universities and secondary and vocational education institutions.
To participate in the project, Ukrainian scientists had to offer the idea of an educational micro-project to improve the work of universities and Ukrainian education in general. Among 140 applicants who submitted applications, the competition committee chose only 25.
Maria Smirnova's internship in Poland continued in November. It included a series of trainings at Warsaw and Jagiellonian universities, as well as consultations and individual meetings with the representatives of academic management, government bodies, foundations and various educational institutions of secondary and vocational education.
Ukrainian scientists visited libraries, departments for promotion and recruitment of Jagiellonian and Warsaw universities, the Department of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Warsaw, the Institute of National Remembrance, Collegium Maius, the Polish-American Freedom Foundation, the Copernicus Science Center, the National Center for Synchrotron Radiation Solaris.
At the end of the internship there was a presentation of the participants' projects. The experts were the Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Yuriy Rashkevich, a Professor of the University of Warsaw Robert A. Sukharsky and Taras Finikov.
‘I defended my mini-project called ’Youth Science Festivals: a project to promote science among young people ‘. It provides for the holding of four scientific events for schoolchildren, students and young scientists on the basis of Mariupol State University. It will be the Science Fair, the Night at the Museum, the Day of Cultural Diversity and the Forum of Young Scientists. The project will be coordinated by the Council of Young Scientists of Moscow State University which will further the implementation of this practice at the level of the city, region and country,’ Maria Smirnova said.
As part of the second phase of the Ukrainian-Polish project, the participants will have to implement the developed projects on the basis of their universities and at the end of May report on the results at a conference in Kiev.
