Comparative Education in Ukraine under Globalisation: Achievements and Challenges

Abstract

In Ukraine, a number of factors including the "iron curtain" disappearance, the independence proclamation in 1991, rapid ICT expansion promoted the national education openness for the worldwide achievements and actualized the comparative education role. In the independence period, an important task for the comparative education in Ukraine is to study the nature of the educational transformations in the developed countries in order to harmonize the national education development with the educational achievements of the other ones. The purpose of the article is to conduct a comparative analysis of the comparative education development in Ukraine and abroad, to outline the achievements and the challenges faced by the national comparative education nowadays.

As a result of the analysis it was concluded that in Ukraine the nature of comparative education development has its own specificity caused by the prolonged isolation and ideological pressure in the Soviet period.

The abovementioned make it impossible to find the direct parallels between the developments of comparative education in foreign countries and in Ukraine until 1991. At the same time, it was concluded that after the Ukraine independence, comparative education started to be developed as an academic field similar to the foreign comparative education methodological approaches.

Before, the "preparatory period" had lasted when the foundations of this science were laid, and the methods of comparison were developed. It should be notified that this period was varying; every decade has enriched the science of comparing with many ideas and technologies. The less was the influence of the communist ideology the fruitfully the methodological ideas and technologies were developing.

The present stage (which is determined by globalization transformations) could be characterized as the period of the national comparative education professionalization. The professionalization is characterized both by the comparative education institutionalization (institutional structure formation) and the development of its methodology. The institutionalization comprises the comparative education research centers formation; the "Comparative pedagogy" course for the future teachers in the Ukrainian universities launching; the specialized journals publication; the annual special events conducting.

The comparative education methodology also is under the process of development. The issues that remain to be open for the Ukrainian comparative educationists’ community in the aspect of the methodology primarily cover the selection of the methods for the comparative educational studies, meeting the national education requirements in terms of the determination of the common trends and patterns of the educational development abroad and primarily in Europe, the prognostication for the educational policymakers in Ukraine.