Competitiveness of National Higher Education Institutions in the

International Market of Educational Services: The Case of Ukraine

Liudmyla Kalashnikova

1 a

, Liudmyla Chernous

1 b

, Olena Lakomova

1 c

, Tetiana Karpenko

1 d

and

Olena Zavalniuk

2 e

Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, 54 Gagarin Ave., Kryvyi Rih, 50086, Ukraine

Kryvyi Rih Mining and Technological Lyceum, 1L Elistinska Str., Kryvyi Rih, 50000, Ukraine

{lvkalashnikova198, chigik4, lakomova.k.r, tkazakova1810, zavalniukelena}@gmail.com

Keywords:

International Market of Educational Services, Foreign Students, Higher Education, Export of Educational

Services.

Abstract:

The article outlines the features of the functioning of the international market of educational services, as

well as its national segments, in particular, on the example of Ukraine. Particular attention is focused on

the organization of training for foreigners in Ukrainian higher education. The advantages and disadvantages

of Ukrainian higher educational institutions in comparison with other exporting countries are determined.

The analysis of the statistical materials of the ratings of Ukrainian universities, presented in the systems of

international assessment, as well as the data of the Ukrainian State Center for International Education on the

possibilities of exporting higher education. The experience of conducting sociological surveys among foreign

students studying at Ukrainian universities is generalized. Based on the analysis, recommendations were

developed to improve the competitiveness of Ukrainian higher educational institutions in the international

market of educational services.

1 INTRODUCTION

As is well known, as a result of increasing global-

ization, all spheres of public life have been trans-

formed, as the main factors of development in the

modern world have been the production, dissemina-

tion and use of knowledge. The ﬁeld of educational

services is no exception, which has recently been

characterized by trends of integration, international-

ization, academic mobility, rapid development of ed-

ucational marketing, export/import of educational ser-

vices, in particular through the introduction of infor-

mation and communication technologies.

Developed countries today are actively competing

for leadership in the international market of educa-

tional services. Intending to strengthen its position

on it, the European Union has created a single educa-

tional and scientiﬁc space for higher education (Eu-

ropean Research Area) within the framework of the

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9573-5955

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0916-7205

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7798-2263

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7340-0238

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6093-732X

Bologna Process, while pursuing political, economic

and scientiﬁc and educational goals. As of the end

of 2020, 48 countries have joined the region, includ-

ing Ukraine, which signed the Bologna Declaration

on May 19, 2005 (Khomeriki, 2015).

Over the years of implementation of the prin-

ciples of the Bologna Process, the Ukrainian mar-

ket of educational services has undergone signiﬁcant

changes. Namely, there has been a liberalization as-

sociated with the easing of institutional constraints

on the formation of educational content and the or-

ganization of the management process. Thus, as a

result of debureaucratization and decentralization re-

forms, Ukrainian higher education institutions have

been able to freely choose their areas of operation,

which is undoubtedly an extremely important factor

in improving their efﬁciency and thus competitiveness

in the international market of educational services.

Thus, in this article, the authors aim to analyze the

theoretical and methodological foundations for study-

ing the competitiveness of national higher education

institutions in the international market of educational

services, as well as to study the state and problems

of the functioning of the national segment of higher

education that provides services for foreign students,

Kalashnikova, L., Chernous, L., Lakomova, O., Karpenko, T. and Zavalniuk, O.

Competitiveness of National Higher Education Institutions in the International Market of Educational Services: The Case of Ukraine.

DOI: 10.5220/0012646400003737

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning (ICHTML 2023), pages 73-84

ISBN: 978-989-758-579-1; ISSN: 2976-0836

to determine the trends that dominate in state strate-

gic plans and programs, based on the requirements of

consumers of educational services.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary, ﬁrstly, to ana-

lyze the theoretical and methodological foundations

for studying the competitiveness of national higher

education institutions in the international market of

educational services, secondly, to analyze the exist-

ing national and international trends in the function-

ing of the higher education market, thirdly, on the ba-

sis of empirical research to identify and analyze the

requests of foreign students for the provision of edu-

cational services in Ukraine, fourthly, to identify the

reasons for the slowdown in the development of the

national segment of the international market of edu-

cational services and, ﬁfthly, to outline possible direc-

tions for continuing research in this area in Ukraine.

The theoretical signiﬁcance of the study lies in the

fact that the accumulated and processed material con-

tributes to an increase in the efﬁciency of work in the

matter of creating a Ukrainian brand of higher edu-

cation and its promotion in the international market

of educational services. The practical signiﬁcance

of the work lies in the possibility of its use as a ba-

sis for developing a strategy to increase the competi-

tiveness of Ukrainian higher educational institutions.

This study is important not only for the Ukrainian sci-

entiﬁc community, the political establishment and the

higher education system in terms of optimizing ap-

proaches to the development of the national market of

educational services in the ﬁeld of higher education,

but also for other countries cooperating with Ukraine

in this area, including companies, who invest or plan

to invest their ﬁnances in the development of higher

education in Ukraine.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

The original concept of matching educational services

to the demands of the global market was proposed by

Lombardi et al. (2001), who noted that the competi-

tiveness of higher education institutions depends lin-

early on the level of uniqueness and high productiv-

ity of the academic community and internal quality.

Among the leading factors in the international com-

petitiveness of universities, Altbach (2003) focused

on the ability of higher education institutions to con-

duct breakthrough research that can be evaluated and

disseminated worldwide, the availability of highly

qualiﬁed faculty, high levels of academic mobility,

transparency and efﬁciency. University management,

availability of proper logistics. Unlike his predeces-

sors, Horta (2009) believed that the international com-

petitiveness of national higher education institutions

is determined by their belonging to a group of coun-

tries with dominant scientiﬁc systems, as well as a

high level of internationalization of educational and

scientiﬁc space.

Pavlenko and Antonyuk (2014) noted that the key

factor in the competitiveness of national higher educa-

tion institutions is the degree of autonomy granted to

them, the ability to show initiative and entrepreneur-

ship in the process of adapting to the demands of the

global market of educational services. However, no

less important factors of success are intellectual capi-

tal, innovation systems, international cooperation and

ﬁnancial opportunities.

The problems of internationalization of higher

education, as well as the integration of the Eu-

ropean educational space were studied by Vargh-

ese (2008), Knight (2004), Ammigan (2020), Lon-

dar et al. (2020), Stepanenko and Debych (2017),

Abuselidze and Zoidze (2023). Instead, Levchenko

and Plynokos (2015) focused on clarifying the pos-

sibilities of exporting educational services by higher

educational institutions of Ukraine, and Rayevnyeva

et al. (2020) – on the factor conditionality of their

competitiveness.

Despite numerous scientiﬁc studies of the pecu-

liarities of the functioning of international and na-

tional markets of educational services, ensuring the

competitiveness of higher education institutions im-

plemented by both foreign and Ukrainian authors,

Ukraine’s position in this context is insufﬁciently

studied and needs to be clariﬁed, in particular judg-

ments of foreign students. Most of the presented

studies are devoted to the analysis of economic fac-

tors of competitiveness, while the social component

of this process requires clariﬁcation and additional

study. The relevance of conducting sociological re-

search of the higher education system is increasing in

connection with the introduction of a higher educa-

tion development strategy aimed primarily at meeting

the needs of students and potential stakeholders.

3 MATERIALS AND METHODS

The design of the study of the competitiveness of

Ukrainian higher education institutions in the inter-

national market of educational services was based on

the use of a mixed methodology, i.e. a combination of

general scientiﬁc and special, quantitative and quali-

tative methods, the choice of which was determined

by the goals and objectives of this study.

In this work, the authors used general scientiﬁc

methods. In particular, the authors used traditional

ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning

and critical analysis, synthesis, induction, deduc-

tion, comparative historical method, statistical anal-

ysis method, desk analysis of documents and reports

of public services for analytical understanding of the

state and features of the provision of educational ser-

vices to foreign students. To identify the problems

that exist in the provision of educational services, as

well as the reasons hindering its development, the

method of critical analysis and analysis of expert

opinions was used. To study the requests of the pop-

ulation for the provision of educational services, the

method of analyzing secondary data was used the re-

sults of sociological studies conducted in Ukraine.

The use of forecasting and scenario planning methods

made it possible to determine the main trends in the

development of the national higher education market.

4 THEORETICAL CONSTRUCT

The international market of educational services as

an independent segment of the economy is a system

of relations between producers, suppliers and con-

sumers, interacting in the process of production and

sale of a kind of product – educational services. The

starting point for its operation should be considered in

1995, when the World Trade Organization approved a

general agreement on trade in services, in which edu-

cational services were separated into a separate sector.

According to Savytska et al. (2016), educational

service can be deﬁned as a socio-economic phe-

nomenon, which is characterized by: intangibility

(there is no actual ability to touch or even measure,

because only intellectual capital is evaluated as a re-

sult of learning, the only material evidence about re-

ceiving an educational service there is a documentary

certiﬁcate in the form of a diploma of higher educa-

tion); inseparability from the source (it is a question

of belonging to a concrete institution of higher edu-

cation, educational services cannot exist outside the

organizational structure of the education system); in-

stability of quality (due to the dynamism of the edu-

cation system, as well as the lack of full standardiza-

tion, the quality of educational services can be con-

trolled only at the time of its provision); synchronic-

ity/asynchrony of production and consumption pro-

cesses (on-line learning mode provides coincidence in

time and space of production and consumption pro-

cesses, while in off-line mode these processes are

asynchronous). With this interpretation in the interna-

tional market, educational services take the form of a

commodity product, acting as formalized knowledge,

competency systems of students or educational pro-

grams, learning technologies produced by teachers.

On the other hand, the provision of educational

services can be deﬁned as a social process character-

ized by relative duration in time and space, the obliga-

tion of interaction of subjects and objects of learning,

delayed detection of results, openness of information,

personnel and other exchanges. In this case, educa-

tional services should be understood as a combination

of material and technical base, scientiﬁc and pedagog-

ical staff, organizational culture, international and na-

tional partners, as well as communication channels.

In accordance with the provisions of the General

Agreement approved by the World Trade Organiza-

tion, educational services are implemented in four

ways (Aydrus and Filippov, 2008):

1) “consumption abroad” involves the movement of

the consumer to the country where the service is

provided;

2) provision of educational services remotely with

the help of information and communication tech-

nologies;

3) commercial presence of the organization-provider

of educational services of one country and terri-

tory of another in the format of functioning of rep-

resentations, branches;

4) the presence of representatives of the

organization-provider of educational services

provides for academic transnational mobility of

individuals to provide educational services.

The ﬁrst method is traditional, its implementation

does not require additional efforts from the export-

ing country, it involves the provision of educational

services for full-time, part-time or distance learn-

ing. Instead, the other three cross-border methods

involve a thorough analysis of the national markets

for educational services in importing countries, pri-

marily through empirical marketing research to study

demand, potential opportunities to open branches of

higher education institutions, academic mobility, and

so on. Extremely important for cross-border forms

of export of educational services is the organiza-

tional stage associated with the legal registration of

branches, structural units, the availability of appropri-

ate logistics, the ability to move capital, selection of

teaching staff, training. The organization of distance

learning of foreign students involves the creation of

an appropriate legal framework and the appropriate

level of use of modern information and communica-

tion technologies.

Recent trends in the international market for ed-

ucational services require national higher education

systems to be competitive, namely to be able to pro-

vide training for innovative professionals based on

Competitiveness of National Higher Education Institutions in the International Market of Educational Services: The Case of Ukraine

modern training models in accordance with the de-

mands of both national and international labor market

in a highly skilled workforce. When assessing com-

petitiveness as a whole set of capabilities of an ed-

ucational institution, it is advisable to apply a com-

prehensive approach that allows to take into account

various aspects of the functioning of the higher edu-

cation system.

In particular, Rayevnyeva et al. (2020) emphasize

such components of the competitiveness of higher ed-

ucation institutions as:

1) rational and effective organizational structure of

the educational institution; availability of quality

management system for training;

2) highly competitive mobile educational programs

that are able to fully meet the demands of the labor

market;

3) established innovative educational process;

4) ﬂexible system of scientiﬁc and technical, admin-

istrative and economic and business communica-

tion. Thus, the leading factors inﬂuencing the

ability of national higher education institutions to

compete in the international market of educational

services are the implementation of a customer-

oriented approach, the possibility of mixed ﬁnanc-

ing, innovation and investment potential, stimulat-

ing domestic productivity, academic mobility and

comprehensive monitoring. quality of educational

services.

Levchenko and Tsarenko (2016) identiﬁed the

possibility of using a number of empirical methods

to assess the level of competitiveness of higher ed-

ucation institutions, including the method of expert

evaluations, surveys of participants in the educational

process, statistical and economic-mathematical anal-

ysis, proﬁle method, SWOT and PEST analysis, rank-

ing method, etc. Among these methods, the latter is

the most popular, given its functionality for integrated

assessment.

According to the Observatory on Academic Rank-

ing and Excellence, there are more than 100 aca-

demic rankings in the world today. The most famous

of which are Academic Ranking of World Universi-

ties (ARWU), QS World University Rankings (QS),

Times Higher Education (THE), Universitas21 (U21)

(Hou and Jacob, 2017).

The last of these methods of assessing the activi-

ties of national markets for educational services U21

provides for the deﬁnition of 29 indicators, grouped

by such categories as (Larionova, 2012):

1) resources (sources of funding);

2) environment (assessment of gender parity in the

academic environment among teachers, availabil-

ity of access to relevant statistical information on

the state of development of the higher education

system, its structure, quality of student training,

teacher mobility, probability of attracting foreign

teachers, etc.);

3) relations (assessment of the scale and effective-

ness of international cooperation, implementation

of research activities);

4) effectiveness (number of scientiﬁc publications,

the level of their citation, the level of coverage

of the population with higher education, the num-

ber of scientists in the country, the unemployment

rate among the population with higher education,

etc.).

However, we believe that the method of expert as-

sessments and surveys of participants in the educa-

tional process is more effective in caring for the di-

rect involvement of informants as consumers of edu-

cational services in the development of programs to

increase the competitiveness of higher education in-

stitutions.

5 FEATURES OF THE MARKET

OF EDUCATIONAL SERVICES

INTERNATIONAL AND

NATIONAL TRENDS

Due to historical reasons, namely the leadership in the

world economy, the leading providers of educational

services in the international market are the United

States (20% of the total foreign nationals studying

abroad), Great Britain (10%), Canada (9%), China

(9%) Australia (8%), France (6%), Russia (6%), Ger-

many (5%), Japan (4%) and other countries (23%).

Despite the fact that the United States still remains

the leader among countries exporting education, the

rating has changed somewhat over the past 20 years

– Western European countries have lost to Canada,

China and Russia (table 1) (Institute of International

Education, 2020).

Over time, the United States has become increas-

ingly difﬁcult to maintain its leadership position as

competition in the international market for educa-

tional services continues to increase. The greatest

successes are achieved in countries where education

operates mainly at the expense of the state or mixed

public-private funding. For such countries, education

is a leading tool for global competitiveness, as the

government invests primarily in the development of

ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning

Table 1: Rating of countries-exporters of educational ser-

vices 2000-2020, % of total foreign nationals studying

abroad.

Country

Year

2000 2022

United States 28 20

UK 14 10

Germany 12 9

France 8 9

Australia 7 8

Japan 4 6

Spain 3 6

Canada 2 5

Belgium 2 4

Austria 2 2

All others 18 21

international educational ties. Unfortunately, today

Ukraine is not among the world leaders in the pro-

vision of educational services, but its current state in

this area does not correspond to the existing educa-

tional potential.

Despite the fact that the United States leads the

ranking of countries exporting educational services,

the total number of educational institutions reaches

4.3 thousand, the number of foreign students in Amer-

ican higher education institutions does not exceed

5.5% of the total number of students. Similar ﬁgures

in other countries are signiﬁcantly higher. For exam-

ple, in Russia this ﬁgure is 8.5% with a total of 766

universities, in Poland – 6.4%, 397 higher education

institutions, respectively. While the UK has a much

smaller number of higher education institutions and

172 universities, one in four students comes from an-

other country (table 2) (Institute of International Edu-

cation, 2020).

The most popular among foreign students who

studied in 2019 in the US were such areas of training

as engineering (22.7%), mathematics and computer

science (20.0%), business and management (18.0%).

Instead, in the UK and Poland – business and manage-

ment, as well as social sciences. Russia and Poland

have the highest among other countries in the training

of medical professionals (table 3) (Institute of Inter-

national Education, 2019).

Also in Russia and Poland, foreign students study-

ing for bachelor’s degree programs are signiﬁcantly

more prevalent than in other countries, where both the

ﬁrst (bachelor’s) and second (master’s) levels of train-

ing are almost equally represented (table 4) (Institute

of International Education, 2019).

Ukrainian higher education institutions have suf-

ﬁcient potential to ﬁght for the share of the market of

educational services at the international level. Today,

Ukraine has one of the densest networks of universi-

ties: 6.7 universities and 8 colleges, technical schools

and colleges per 1 million Ukrainians. While the

same ﬁgure in Poland is 9.2 universities and similar

educational institutions, in Russia – 5.8, Germany –

4.3, the UK – 3.7, respectively (Verkhovna Rada of

Ukraine, 2022).

According to the State Statistics Committee, as of

the beginning of 2021, there are 515 universities and

similar educational institutions in Ukraine (table 5).

Structurally, the Ukrainian segment of higher edu-

cation is represented by: 29.0% universities, 23.0%

institutes, 11.0% academies, 19.0% separate depart-

ments, 1.0% research centers, 17.0% other research

institutions and organizations. Of these, 64.5% are

based on state property, 12.2% – communal and

23.2% – private, corporate (State Statistics Commit-

tee of Ukraine, 2023). A similar ratio of the number of

state-owned higher education institutions to individu-

als is typical of Germany and Russia. In Poland and

the United Kingdom, on the other hand, the situation

is the opposite: there are signiﬁcantly more private

universities than public ones.

Ukraine is characterized by a high level of profes-

sional training of teaching staff of higher education

institutions – every second teacher has the degree of

Candidate of Sciences, every tenth – Doctor of Sci-

ence.

The total number of students in Ukraine is 1.422

million people, of whom 44.0% study at the expense

of the state budget, the rest (56.0%) – at the ex-

pense of individuals. Given the distribution of grad-

uate students by training, Ukrainian institutions of

higher education train specialists in socio-economic

and humanitarian ﬁelds (44.0%), engineers (16.0%),

physicians (8.0%), teachers (7.0%), transport workers

(6.0%), specialists in natural sciences (4.0%), archi-

tects and builders (3.0%), service workers (3.0%) and

others (State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, 2023).

According to the results of 2020, Ukraine took

36th place in the ranking of national systems of higher

education Universitas21, gaining 47.8 points out of

100 possible (Williams and Leahy, 2020). Of the 280

existing Ukrainian higher education institutions, only

6 are leading in the ranking. In particular, Kharkiv

National University named after V. Karazin, which

took 491 positions out of 1002 represented world in-

stitutions of higher education, is followed in the rank-

ing of Ukrainian universities by Kyiv National Uni-

versity named after T. Shevchenko, National Techni-

cal University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”, Na-

tional Technical University “Kyiv Polytechnic Insti-

tute named after I. Sikorsky”, Sumy State University,

National University “Lviv Polytechnic”.

In the ranking of the Times Higher Education in

Competitiveness of National Higher Education Institutions in the International Market of Educational Services: The Case of Ukraine

Table 2: Characteristics of the higher education system, 2020.

Country United States UK Australia Russia Germany Poland

International students as percentage 5.5% 22.3% 31.3% 8.5% 11.7% 6.4%

of total higher education

Public institutions 1659 167 53 500 270 130

Private institutions 2639 5 87 266 159 267

Table 3: Inbound students by ﬁeld of study 2019, % of the total number of foreign citizens studying abroad in the country.

Field of study / Country United States UK Australia Russia Germany Poland

Engineering 22.7 11.0 10.6 21.9 26.4 7.8

Business and Management 18.0 26.7 40.5 18.6 15.6 28.6

Mathematics and 20.0 6.6 13.2 3.8 10.8 7.2

Computer Sciences

Other/Unspeciﬁed Subject Areas 8.5 8.1 9.9 7.7 4.5 10.2

Social Sciences 8.3 14.3 6.8 2.7 6.8 18.5

Physical and Life Sciences 8.0 9.6 4.9 4.8 8.6 0.7

Fine and Applied Arts 6.2 6.9 3.7 2.4 7.9 3.7

Health Professions 3.5 6.6 7.4 15.7 5.3 13.3

Education 1.7 2.5 2.0 9.1 1.2 2.7

Humanities 1.7 7.2 0 10.4 10.9 6.2

Agriculture 1.4 0.5 1.0 2.9 2.0 1.1

2020 among 92 countries, Ukraine is represented by

11 higher education institutions, where in addition

to the above, the activities of Kharkiv National Uni-

versity of Radio Electronics, Ivan Franko National

University of Lviv, Kyiv National Economic Uni-

versity, National University were evaluated “Ostroh

Academy”, Chernihiv National Technological Uni-

versity (Times Higher Education, 2020).

According to the Ukrainian State Center for In-

ternational Education, as of the beginning of 2021,

76548 foreign students, graduate students, doctoral

students, and students from 155 countries were study-

ing in Ukraine. Over the past ten years, there has been

a positive trend in the internationalization of higher

education, as the total number of foreign students

has almost doubled (from 38,166 people in 2011 to

67,327 people in 2020, there was a slight decrease

in the total number of foreign students from 80,470

people). 2019 to 76548 people in 2020 in connection

with the global coronavirus pandemic) (table 5) (State

Statistics Committee of Ukraine, 2023).

As of the beginning of 2021, out of the total num-

ber of foreign students staying in Ukraine, 90.02%

came for basic education, 6.45% – for language train-

ing, 2.25% – for continuing postgraduate education,

1.27% – postgraduate and doctoral studies, 0.01% –

in academic mobility programs.

The leading donor countries for Ukraine are India

(23.64% of the total number of foreign students), Mo-

rocco (11.54%), Azerbaijan (6.95%), Turkmenistan

(6.05%), Nigeria (5.52%), China (5.30%), Turkey

(5.22%), Egypt (3.98%), Israel (2.75%), Uzbekistan

(2.07%) and others (Ukrainian State Center for Inter-

national Education, 2021).

With the growing demand for education export

services, the supply is growing – the number of higher

education institutions accepting foreign students has

increased from 185 institutions in 2015 to 394 in

2020. The highest ﬁgure was in 2019 and amounted

to 455 universities (table 5). The decrease in the num-

ber of institutions that provide training to foreigners is

due to objective reasons – the reduction in the num-

ber of institutions of I-II level of accreditation in the

country.

The most popular among students from other

countries are Kharkiv National University named af-

ter V. Karazin, where 4277 foreigners study, Kharkiv

National Medical University (4215), National Med-

ical University named after O. Bogomolets (3061),

Odessa National Medical University (2935), Zapor-

izhzhya State Medical University (2860), Vinnytsia

National Medical University named after M. Pirogov

(2771), Dnipro State Medical University (2573),

Ternopil National Medical University named after

I. Gorbachevsky (2433), Bukovynian State Medical

University (2095), T. Shevchenko National University

of Kyiv (1838) (Ukrainian State Center for Interna-

tional Education, 2021).

Usually, international students choose those spe-

cialties that are in demand in the country of their cit-

izenship. Thus, in 2020, among a number of oth-

ers, such areas of training were popular as medicine,

which was chosen for admission by 32.36% of foreign

students, medical – 7.72%, dentistry – 6.33%, man-

ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning

Table 4: Inbound students by academic level 2019, % of the total number of foreign citizens studying abroad in the country.

Academic level / Country United States UK Australia Russia Germany Poland

Undergraduate degree/ Qualiﬁcation 55.3 51.4 46.3 60.3 40.9 76.2

(Post-)Graduate degree/Qualiﬁcation 46.7 40.8 48.6 29.9 59.1 23.8

Undergraduate study abroad/Non-award - 7.2 5.1 3.2 - -

(Post-)Graduate study abroad/ - 0.6 - 6.6 - -

Non-award

Table 5: Characteristics of higher education institutions in Ukraine 2010-2021.

Year Number of higher Number of higher Number of Number of Number of

education education students, foreign students, trainees,

institutions institutions million people students, doctoral students,

accepting people people

foreigners

2010-2011 813 - 2.418 38166 53664

2014-2015 664 - 1.689 56933 63172

2015-2016 659 185 1.605 53493 63906

2016-2017 657 228 1.587 52147 64066

2017-2018 661 239 1.539 48991 66310

2018-2019 652 443 1.522 54556 75605

2019-2020 619 455 1.440 60006 80470

2020-2021 515 394 1.442 67327 76548

agement – 4.36%, pharmacy – 3.10%, law – 2.97%,

architecture and construction – 2.96%, secondary

education – 2.27%, ﬁnance – 1.95%, economics –

1.60%, philology – 1.29% and others (Shapovalova,

2020). Educational programs for the training of med-

ical workers are most in demand among students

from India, Morocco, China and Asia. Students from

post-Soviet countries choose to study such special-

ties as law, economics, international relations, bank-

ing, public administration, etc. The largest number of

foreign students mastering the educational programs

“Secondary Education”, “Philology” came to Ukraine

from China (Shapovalova, 2020).

Another positive point that attracts foreign stu-

dents to Ukraine is the cost of education. According

to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine,

the average tuition fee for medical students is 4.3

thousand dollars a year, and for other specialties – 2

thousand dollars (Ministry of Education and Science

of Ukraine, 2020), which is almost 10 times less than

in Western Europe or 5 times less than in Turkey or

China. Nevertheless, the competition for foreigners

to enter Ukrainian higher education institutions is al-

most non-existent, and accordingly the chances of ob-

taining a diploma are much higher than in the coun-

tries of origin.

Spivakovska and Hnativska (2010) conducting a

comparative analysis of higher education institutions

in Ukraine and other countries, systematized the ad-

vantages and disadvantages of Ukrainian universities

given their attractiveness to foreign students, present-

ing the results in the form of a table (table 6, 7).

According to these authors, given the differences in

higher education, Ukraine as an exporter of educa-

tional services can focus on the target audience of

students from the Middle East, Southeast and Central

Asia, as well as post-Soviet countries.

In our opinion, the list of these differences is in-

complete and needs to be supplemented.

6 SURVEY RESULTS OF

FOREIGN STUDENTS

STUDYING IN UKRAINE

In order to describe the situation on the Ukrainian

market of educational services and to clarify the

level of competitiveness during July-August 2020, the

State Enterprise “Ukrainian State Center for Inter-

national Education” and Kharkiv National Economic

University named after S. Kuznets conducted a sur-

vey among students with the assistance of the Min-

istry of Education and Science of Ukraine – for-

eigners studying in various educational institutions of

Ukraine (sample size – 451 people). The survey was

conducted using the questionnaire method.

The responses of foreign students conﬁrmed the

assumptions about the existing advantages of Ukraine

compared to competing countries in the market of ed-

ucational services. After all, the leading factors of

choice in favor of Ukrainian higher education institu-

Competitiveness of National Higher Education Institutions in the International Market of Educational Services: The Case of Ukraine

Table 6: The results of a comparative analysis of the peculiarities of the functioning of higher education institutions (Ukraine

compared to the EU, the Middle East, Asia and Africa).

Advantages Disadvantages

1) lower price for education and 1) poor living conditions in

accommodation dormitories

2) availability of material and technical 2) outdated equipment in laboratories

base for conducting laboratory for practical training

and practical classes 3) lack of teaching in German, French

Arabic, Turkish and other languages

(with some exceptions)

4) limited budget places for

foreign students

Table 7: The results of a comparative analysis of the peculiarities of the functioning of higher education institutions (Ukraine

in comparison with the countries of the post-Soviet space).

Advantages Disadvantages

1) lower price for education and 1) higher tuition fees compared to

accommodation compared to Russia Belarus, Georgia, Moldova,

2) loyal attitude to representatives Turkmenistan and others

different nationalities, religious

beliefs

3) higher level of education quality

tions for the majority of surveyed students were the

reasonable cost of education (44.1%), political and

geographical location of Ukraine (41.7%) (table 8)

(Ukrainian State Center for International Education,

2020).

Table 8: Distribution of respondents’ answers to the ques-

tion “Why did you choose to study in Ukraine?”, % of the

total number of respondents, multiple choice.

Answer options %

Quality of education 36.8

Cost of education 44.1

Recognition of the diploma in the homeland 34.8

I wanted to study in Europe 41.7

Opportunity to gain practical experience 27.0

Other reasons 11.3

The hypothesis about the complexity of paper-

work was also conﬁrmed, as almost a third of respon-

dents (27.4%) had some difﬁculty in obtaining a study

visa. According to the respondents, the time spent on

obtaining permits averaged from 1 to 3 months (ta-

ble 9), and had to pay about 500-1000$ and more (ta-

ble 10) (Ukrainian State Center for International Ed-

ucation, 2020).

The third hypothesis about the difﬁculties of ex-

porting educational services due to the lack of infor-

mation, marketing and advertising support for recruit-

ment, the lack of a network of university agents, was

also conﬁrmed. After all, the majority of respondents

processed documents through intermediaries – private

Table 9: Distribution of respondents’ answers to the ques-

tion “How much time did you spend preparing documents

for admission (receiving an invitation, legalizing docu-

ments, translation, obtaining a study visa)?”, % of the total

number of respondents.

Answer options %

Less than 1 month 23.6

From 1 to 3 months 60.7

More than 3 months 15.7

Table 10: Distribution of respondents’ answers to the ques-

tion “How much money did you spend on preparing docu-

ments for admission (receiving an invitation, legalization of

documents, translation, obtaining a study visa?)”, % of the

total number of respondents.

Answer options %

Up to 100$ 3.5

100-300$ 12.8

300-500$ 111.6

500-1,000$ 28.2

More than 1,000$ 43.9

recruitment companies (table 11), which in their ac-

tivities do not always meet the requirements of in-

tegrity. In addition, the involvement of third parties

signiﬁcantly delays the processing of documents and

increases the cost of this procedure (Ukrainian State

Center for International Education, 2020).

As practice shows, when it comes to the intentions

of foreign students to study abroad, along with such

factors as the quality of educational services, career

opportunities, adaptation and the formation of a sense

ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning

Table 11: Distribution of respondents’ answers to the ques-

tion “How did you apply for an invitation to study?”, % of

the total number of respondents.

Answer options %

Personally in Ukraine 16.6

Through the website 1.1

of the Ukrainian State Center

for International Education

Sent to the university by mail in person 4.1

Sent online to university 5.2

Through a private recruitment company 73.0

of belonging are especially important. That is why the

development of social support networks is relevant,

which at the stage of recruitment contribute to the for-

mation of a positive social microclimate. Therefore,

it is advisable to intensify the work of universities

in this direction, in particular by creating appropri-

ate services on the ofﬁcial websites of higher educa-

tion institutions on the Internet, groups on social net-

works, the organization of national and international

educational fairs and more.

The average score of satisfaction of foreign stu-

dents with studies at Ukrainian universities is 6.3

points (where 1 point – completely dissatisﬁed, 10

points – completely satisﬁed) (table 12) (Ukrainian

State Center for International Education, 2020). The

average score was calculated as the arithmetic mean

of all data given by respondents.

Table 12: Distribution of respondents’ answers to the ques-

tion “Are you satisﬁed with your studies at the university

(where 1 point – completely dissatisﬁed, 10 points – com-

pletely satisﬁed)?”, % of the total number of respondents.

Answer options %

1 8.0

2 4.0

3 5.0

4 5.0

5 12.0

6 10.0

7 20.0

8 12.0

9 7.0

10 17.0

Table 13: Distribution of respondents’ answers to the ques-

tion “What language is taught in?”, % of the total number

of respondents.

Answer options %

In English 56.0

Mixed form of teaching 18.0

In Russian 16.1

In Ukrainian 9.9

Table 14: Distribution of respondents’ answers to the ques-

tion “In what language would you like to study?”, % of the

total number of respondents.

Answer options %

In English 58.9

In Russian 25.6

In Ukrainian 8.8

In French 4.3

In German 2.0

In another language 0.4

Table 15: Distribution of respondents’ answers to the ques-

tion “What would you like to improve in the system of edu-

cation of foreigners in Ukraine?”, % of the total number of

respondents, multiple choice.

Answer options %

Material and technical base of 47.0

the university

International community 44.0

University infrastructure 37.0

Dormitories 50.4

Opportunities for leisure 37.6

Nothing, everything is satisfying 17.2

Students have a number of reasons for dissatisfac-

tion with their studies in Ukraine. It is, ﬁrst of all,

about the language of instruction. Despite the fact that

in the vast majority of educational institutions teach-

ing is in English (table 13), students seek to study in

their native language (table 14) (Ukrainian State Cen-

ter for International Education, 2020). Every fourth

student surveyed wants to study in Ukrainian univer-

sities in Russian, ﬁrst of all, they are from the post-

Soviet countries. However, the issue of language is

particularly acute for Ukraine, especially given the

military conﬂict with Russia, so meeting this require-

ment is extremely problematic, at least for now.

Almost half of the respondents are dissatisﬁed

with the state of living in dormitories, logistics of uni-

versities (table 15) (Ukrainian State Center for Inter-

national Education, 2020).

7 IMPLICATIONS AND

CONCLUSION

At the beginning of the XXI century, competition

among education-exporting countries has received a

new impetus due to the adoption by most Western

European countries of an action program to expand

foreign policy, including export-import policy in the

ﬁeld of educational services. Such interest in the de-

velopment of this market segment is determined by a

number of reasons: the available economic beneﬁts

Competitiveness of National Higher Education Institutions in the International Market of Educational Services: The Case of Ukraine

(payment for tuition, accommodation, meals, trans-

port, entertainment, etc.); the possibility of modern-

izing national markets for educational services to in-

crease competitiveness; intensiﬁcation of the expan-

sion of international cooperation in the ﬁeld of sci-

ence and technology, language, values and culture, as

well as the need to form a positive image of the coun-

try in the world community.

The ﬁeld of education is developing dynamically,

trying to meet all the demands of scientiﬁc and tech-

nological progress in the ﬁeld of material production,

the deepening of the international division of labor

and the growth of socio-economic needs of mankind.

Analysis of its functioning allows us to draw cer-

tain conclusions that the modern international market

of educational services is characterized by trends of

internationalization and development of cross-border

education, large-scale academic mobility of students

and teachers, development of new strategies for ex-

porting educational services in a pandemic, creation

and development of network structures of providers,

transition from mass enrollment of students to search

of the most talented.

Ukraine is not yet able to fully compete with the

leaders in the ranking of countries exporting educa-

tional services. However, today it is steadily embrac-

ing its niche among them, owning about 1.0% of the

international market. Ukrainian higher education in-

stitutions have the potential to increase exports of ed-

ucational services, primarily by increasing the share

of gross value added in higher education as one of the

leading sectors of the national economy.

To identify the problems that exist in the provision

of educational services, as well as the reasons hin-

dering its development, the method of critical analy-

sis and analysis of expert opinions was used. These

methods made it possible to supplement the list of

differences of functioning of higher education insti-

tutions in Ukraine and other countries. Thus, the ad-

vantages of Ukraine include the convenience of polit-

ical and geographical location, the availability of ex-

tensive transport infrastructure, high security of resi-

dence, convertibility of Ukrainian diplomas of higher

education abroad, highly qualiﬁed teachers, a variety

of educational programs and more. No less important

is the international context of Ukrainian legislation in

the ﬁeld of education, which is loyal to both foreign-

ers and refugees. There is also an ofﬁcial information

resource in Ukraine – the Ukrainian State Center for

International Education, which is a state source of in-

formation on the export of educational services.

Among the shortcomings, compared to the closest

competitor – Russia, Ukraine still has a fairly strict

system of legalization of documents (a paid proce-

dure for afﬁxing an apostille on ofﬁcial documents

is mandatory). Another weakness of Ukraine is the

lack of a network of university agents, and thus the

ineffectiveness of individual information campaigns

to attract foreign students, both at the national and

regional levels. Given the popularity of medical ed-

ucation programs, emphasis should be placed on the

need to address internship education and appropriate

practical training.

As for the quota of budget places for foreign stu-

dents, it applies only to persons coming to study in

Ukraine in accordance with international agreements

on cooperation, as well as foreign Ukrainians. Ac-

cordingly, the expansion of quotas would further mo-

tivate non-residents to study at Ukrainian universities.

A signiﬁcant disadvantage is the lack of complete

information about educational programs and the list

of disciplines, because not all ofﬁcial university web-

sites present them in English. In addition, if a for-

eign student wishes to transfer to further education in

a particular educational program, there is a problem

of compliance with the content of the programs of the

same name, as well as the question of making an aca-

demic difference.

If most of these shortcomings of the international

direction of the Ukrainian segment of higher educa-

tion are eliminated, our country will be able to signif-

icantly increase competitiveness in the global market

of educational services.

Analysis of statistical data and systematization of

the results of empirical sociological research led to

the conclusion that over the past ﬁve years, the com-

petitiveness of the Ukrainian higher education system

has slightly increased. As we can see, despite the pos-

itive changes taking place in Ukrainian higher educa-

tion today, in particular in the international direction,

a number of key issues remain unresolved, which sig-

niﬁcantly affect its competitiveness in the market of

educational services.

The use of forecasting and scenario planning

methods made it possible to determine the main

trends in the development of the national higher ed-

ucation market. In particular, the ﬁrst step in this di-

rection is to change the priorities of Ukrainian educa-

tional policy in order to increase the competitiveness

of national universities. In particular, the Ministry of

Education and Science of Ukraine approved a plan of

measures to promote national higher education insti-

tutions in the global market of educational services,

which provides for the establishment of an associa-

tion of foreign graduates, improving the legal frame-

work, creating an interagency electronic platform, in-

tensifying international cooperation with partner uni-

versities. etc. (Ministry of Education and Science of

ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning

Ukraine, 2021).

The study, conducted by the authors before the

recent full-scale invasion of Russia on February 24,

2022 on the territory of Ukraine, included the study

of the state and problems of the functioning of the na-

tional segment of higher education, which provides

services for foreign students. The outlined prospects

for the internationalization of Ukrainian higher ed-

ucation were possible in peacetime. A number of

higher education institutions and foreign students are

already known to have been affected by the war,

which should not be ignored, and perhaps even iden-

tiﬁed as a direction for future research. In the near

future, Ukraine’s position in the international mar-

ket will be shaken, since even today the landscape of

Ukrainian higher education and its opportunities have

changed signiﬁcantly. The decrease in the inﬂux of

foreign students will depend on the duration of hos-

tilities, the possibility of ensuring their safe stay in

Ukrainian institutions of higher education. A prior-

ity for development and a topic for further research

may be the distance education of foreign students in

Ukrainian universities, who work today in exile.

With the start of a full-scale war in February 2022,

all foreign students left the territory of Ukraine and

continued their studies remotely. Some students, due

to the inability to continue their studies in their own

country or transfer to another university, returned to

Ukraine to complete their course of study, despite the

dangers of wartime. How events will develop in the

future depends, ﬁrst of all, on the duration of hostili-

ties on the territory of Ukraine. The main problems of

organizing the education of foreign students today are

security, communication in the face of power outages

and the Internet.

REFERENCES

Abuselidze, G. and Zoidze, G. (2023). The use of trans-

ferable skills in education and its impact on the econ-

omy. CTE Workshop Proceedings, 10:124–138. https:

//doi.org/10.55056/cte.550.

Altbach, P. (2003). The Costs and Beneﬁts of World-Class

Universities. International Higher Education, (33):5–

8. https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.2003.33.7381.

Ammigan, R. (2020). The International Student Expe-

rience: A Data-driven Approach to Enhancing Stu-

dentSatisfaction at Institutions of Higher Education.

Ozkan, A. D., editor, Selected proceedings of Eura-

sia Higher Education Summit EURIE 2020, pages

101–106.

Istanbul Aydın University, Istanbul. https:

//www.researchgate.net/publication/349737165.

Aydrus, I. A. and Filippov, V. M. (2008). World mar-

ket of educational services. Peoples’ Friend-

ship University of Russia, Moscow. https:

//repository.rudn.ru/ru/records/manual/downloadﬁle/

212a621d-e7a2-e911-80c8-30e1715d1da7/.

Horta, H. (2009). Global and national prominent univer-

sities: internationalization, competitiveness and the

role of the State. Higher Education, 58(3):387–405.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40269190.

Hou, Y.-W. and Jacob, W. J. (2017). What contributes

more to the ranking of higher education institutions?

A comparison of three world university rankings.

International Education Journal: Comparative Per-

spectives, 16(4):29–46. https://openjournals.library.

sydney.edu.au/index.php/IEJ/article/view/10638.

Institute of International Education (2019). Project

Atlas 2019 release: A quick look at Global

Mobility Trends. https://www.iie.org/en/

Research-and-Insights/Project-Atlas/Explore-Data/

Infographics/2019-Project-Atlas-Infographics.

Institute of International Education (2020). Project At-

las 2020 release: A quick look at Global Mo-

bility Trends. https://iie.widen.net/s/rfw2c7rrbd/

project-atlas-infographics-2020.

Khomeriki, E. A. (2015). Ukrainian higher education in the

format of Bologna process: trends and issues. Sci-

entiﬁc and Theoretical Almanac Grani, 18(7):6–10.

https://doi.org/10.15421/1715127.

Knight, J. (2004). Internationalization Remodeled: Deﬁni-

tion, Approaches, and Rationales. Journal of Studies

in International Education, 8(1):5–31. https://doi.org/

10.1177/1028315303260832.

Larionova, M. V. (2012). Methodology for compara-

tive analysis of international approaches to ranking

higher educational institutions. Bulletin of interna-

tional organizations: education, science, new econ-

omy, (1(36)):34–69.

Levchenko, O. and Tsarenko, I. (2016). The competitive-

ness of higher education of Ukraine in dimension of

international rankings. Economics and organization of

management, (3(23)):73–81. https://jeou.donnu.edu.

ua/article/view/2874.

Levchenko, O. M. and Plynokos, D. D. (2015). Ex-

ports of Educational Services at Higher Educational

Institutions of Ukraine in Terms of Globalization

Processes. Ekonomika: realii chasu, (4(20)):210–

216. https://economics.net.ua/ﬁles/archive/2015/No4/

210-216.pdf.

Lombardi, J. V., Craig, D. D., Capaldi, E. D., Gater, D. S.,

and Mendonc¸a, S. L. (2001). Quality Engines: The

Competitive Context for Research Universities. An

Annual Report from The Lombardi Program on Mea-

suring University Performance. http://tinyurl.com/

mr549s48.

Londar, S., Shapovalova, O., and Pron, N. (2020). Mar-

ket of educational services in ukraine: competitive

advantages and modern challenges for foreign stu-

dents. Educational analytics of Ukraine, (1(8)):5–22.

https://doi.org/10.32987/2617-8532-2020-1-5-22.

Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (2020).

Dokhid Ukrainy vid inozemnykh studentiv za period

yikh navchannia stanovyt ponad 3 miliardy dolariv

SShA – Ukrainskyi derzhavnyi tsentr mizhnarodnoi

Competitiveness of National Higher Education Institutions in the International Market of Educational Services: The Case of Ukraine

osvity [Ukraine’s income from foreign students dur-

ing their studies is more than 3 billion US dollars –

Ukrainian State Center for International Education].

http://tinyurl.com/394uhkmj.

Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (2021). Pop-

uliaryzatsiia vyshchoi osvity Ukrainy na svitovomu

rynku osvitnikh posluh – Uriad zatverdyv plan zakho-

div [Promotion of higher education in Ukraine on the

world market of educational services – the govern-

ment has approved an action plan]. http://tinyurl.com/

4wuca9th.

Pavlenko, A. F. and Antonyuk, L. L., editors (2014).

Research universities: world experience and

prospects for development in Ukraine. Kyiv Na-

tional Economic University named after Vadym

Hetman; Institute of Higher Education, Kyiv.

https://ir.kneu.edu.ua/bitstream/handle/2010/7906/

cgiirbis

64.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

Rayevnyeva, O. V., Malyshko, Y. O., Brovko, O. I., and

Chernyshov, V. V. (2020). The Factors of Com-

petitiveness of the Higher Education Institutions of

Ukraine. Business Inform, (12):109–116. https://doi.

org/10.32983/2222-4459-2020-12-109-116.

Savytska, N. L., Ushakova, N. G., and Pominova,

I. I. (2016). The Market for Higher Ed-

ucation Services in the Context of the The-

ory of Merit Goods. Problemy ekonomiky,

(4):190–196. https://www.problecon.com/export pdf/

problems-of-economy-2016-4 0-pages-190 196.pdf.

Shapovalova, O. O. (2020). Inozemni studenty v Ukraini:

statystychni dani [Foreign students in Ukraine: statis-

tics]. Ukrainian State Center for International Edu-

cation, Kyiv. https://iraq.mfa.gov.ua/storage/app/sites/

36/uploaded-ﬁles/student2020.pdf.

Spivakovska, T. V. and Hnativska, D. P. (2010). Mozh-

lyvosti vykhodu ukrainskykh vyshchykh navchalnykh

zakladiv na mizhnarodnyi rynok osvitnikh posluh

[Opportunities for Ukrainian higher education institu-

tions to enter the international market of educational

services]. Economic Bulletin of the National Techni-

cal University of Ukraine Kyiv Polytechnic Institute

named after Igor Sikorsky, (7):79–86.

State Statistics Committee of Ukraine (2023). Demographic

and social statistics / Education. https://www.ukrstat.

gov.ua/operativ/menu/menu u/osv .htm.

Stepanenko, I. and Debych, M. (2017). Navchannia in-

ozemnykh studentiv v Ukraini: stan problemy, per-

spektyvy [Education of foreign students in Ukraine:

the state of the problem, prospects]. Vyshcha os-

vita Ukrainy, (4):48–55. http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/

vou 2017 4 8.

Times Higher Education (2020). World University Rank-

ings 2020. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/

world-university-rankings/2020/world-ranking.

Ukrainian State Center for International Education (2020).

Prezentatsiia zvitu za rezultatamy marketynhovoho

doslidzhennia pryvablyvosti ukrainskoi vyshchoi

osvity dlia inozemnykh hromadian [Report on the re-

sults of a marketing study of the attractiveness of

Ukrainian higher education for foreign citizens]. http:

//tinyurl.com/26fhu9dd.

Ukrainian State Center for International Education

(2021). Foreign students in Ukraine: statistics.

http://web.archive.org/web/20230422174119/https:

//studyinukraine.gov.ua/zhittya-v-ukraini/

inozemni-studenti-v-ukraini/.

Varghese, N. V. (2008). Globalization of higher educa-

tion and cross-border student mobility. IIEP Research

paper, Paris. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/

pf0000157989/PDF/157989eng.pdf.multi.

Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (2022). Pro skhvalennia

Stratehii rozvytku vyshchoi osvity v Ukraini na 2022-

2032 roky [On the approval of the Strategy for

the Development of Higher Education in Ukraine

for 2022-2032]. https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/

286-2022-%D1%80.

Williams, R. and Leahy, A. (2020). U21 Ranking of

National Higher Education Systems. The University

of Melbourne, Melbourne. https://universitas21.

com/sites/default/ﬁles/2020-04/U21 Rankings%

20Report 0320 Final LR%20Single.pdf.

ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning