Round table “Agro education – business expectations” organized by the Association “Ukrainian Agribusiness Club”, agency AgriEvent, Federation of agro industry employers and “Agroosvita” held on May 19, 2016. Business, government, NGOs and related entities’ representatives have discussed current issues and perspectives of agro education, its compliance with most recent practical urgencies and business willingness to participate in education development.

President of the Association “Ukrainian Agribusiness Club”, meeting moderator, Mr. Alex Lissitsa has marked that business expect that such events will become communication platform for the industry, education and R&D centers. In his speech, Mr. Lissitsa has outlined problems within business in hiring new comers, graduates of Ukrainian university. “Today the industry provided with high qualified staff responding to subjective commitments, able to act in dynamic framework and is open for sharing its expertise and practical knowledge, along with, the industry suffer from a lack of production professionals as: technicians, mechanics, zoo technics, agronomists and other professionals. All the issues caused not only by poor rural infrastructure and low willingness within young individuals to live in rural area, but also certain questions to professionals which are ready and able to work with latest technologies. Each year agro entities invest billions of UAH into technics and equipment. Along with, it becomes a real problem to find qualified staff to service and to work with the technics, installations and equipment. And this issue is not a problem only of university. The government is not able to solve current issues of human capital development as poor financing capacities. And this is why the goal of today’s event is to find a solution”, Mr. Lissitsa noted.

“The problem of agro education is ongoing issue for all agro companies in Ukraine and strongly refers to middle level production professionals. The lack of qualified staff causes a notable development lag comparing to global leading companies. This is why rapid reforms in agro education are required by the industry”, vice-president of AgroGeneration, Mr. Vadim Bodayev said.

Today 19 agro high schools represent agro education in Ukraine, including 17 universities and two academies with 102.4 thousands of students and some 7.8 thousands of staff. 91 colleges work in the structure of agro university and 21 colleges - with legal entity rights, teaching 61 thousands of students by 6.6 thousands of staff. Besides, 32 entities work on issues of professional certification and human capital development.

Despite such impressive number of educational units related to agricultural science, State Employment Service of Ukraine has issued a rating of five most required professions including agronomists. Ukrainian agro companies confirm that from year to year they suffer from the lack of qualified work force which would join production departments. Thus, 40% of agro businesses have noted a strong lack of qualified staff, and in 2015 – 65%. Except the lack of staff for production divisions, agro entities have the lack of administrative staff. In 2012 6% of companies have met difficulties in hiring accountants and economists, in 2015 – 18%. At the same time, research of AgriSurvey has shown that businesses mainly suffer from the lack of production professionals. Each second company is ready to hire individual with no experience and each tenth already does it.

The lowest level of popularity is observed among medium and small agro business companies as a potential employer of graduated professionals in agro industry. Most of graduates (31%) would organize their own agro business showing low attractiveness to have a job contract in agro industry. From the other side, during three last years, amount of such graduates which are willing to have own agro business decreased by 3% (demonstrating worsening of business framework), and willingness to have a job contract within agro industry has increased by 4%.

Ms Natalia Petrova, Head of human capital development department in “Kernel” had speech about professional development in the company taking into consideration dynamic development of business framework. “Our company is one of the largest in Ukraine and develops dynamically every level of human capital, causing constant demand for new qualified individuals. We regularly invest in youth as we understand its importance for the future of the business. Our company has two educational projects gathering both graduates and students. Today we cooperate with three agro university. We wish to educational organizations in Ukraine to perform changes, to experiment and to learn more, along with our cooperation which is able to change the education for better”, Ms Natalia Petrova said.

In the end of the event, representatives have signed a resolution with all the recommendations and offers directed to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.