If you or people close to you are contemplating a country to go for a higher education, we suggest you to consider Ukraine. It may be that one of the many Ukrainian universities offering a high-quality education will meet your needs.

Studying and acquiring an education in Ukraine is considered very prestigious. This is probably the reason why the country has the largest share of population with a higher education compared with European countries. More than 90 percent of Ukrainians have either a secondary or higher education. The high standard of a Ukrainian education is well reflected in the brilliant performance of Ukrainian student teams in international competitions in software programming, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and astrophysics. It is not only statistics that confirm the high educational level of Ukrainian people. This fact draws the attention of international business, which highlights it as the country’s competitive advantage. Ukrainian institutions of higher learning now have approximately 2.5 million students.

No wonder that a Ukrainian education is in such great demand among foreigners. Today Ukraine is among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of the number of foreign students. Currently there are about 45,000 foreign citizens studying in Ukraine, and the country occupies 1 percent of the international market of educational services for foreigners. The traditional regions that send students to Ukraine are China, Russia, Turkmenistan, India, Jordan, Syria, Iran, and Morocco, just to name a few. All in all, students from 130 foreign countries are currently studying in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian system of higher education is powerful and ramified. It develops in synch with global trends typical of all developed countries.

There are 881 institutions of higher learning of different accreditation levels in the country: universities, academies, institutes, conservatories (music academies), colleges, and technical schools. While less than two decades ago all educational institutions were either public or communal, funded exclusively from the state budget, today there are also private institutions of higher learning in the country. Their share now exceeds 20 percent.

The state, represented by the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sport of Ukraine, controls educational institutions, ensuring the high quality of their services. For this purpose, a system of licensing and accreditation for all institutions of higher learning has been introduced. An educational institution is required to have a license to provide educational services in Ukraine. Every licensed institution of higher learning is in the State Register of Higher Educational Establishments. It is also authorized to issue diplomas only for the qualifications it is accredited for. This system of education quality control also applies to branches of foreign educational institutions operating in Ukraine. When choosing an educational institution to study in, make sure it has an accreditation certificate and a license for the qualification of your choice. Every document issued in Ukraine to certify an education must comply with the respective specimen approved nationwide. A Ukrainian diploma has multiple levels of protection.

In Ukraine, only the educational institutions of the 3-rd and 4-th accreditation levels are authorized to provide a complete higher education, awarding the qualification degrees of Specialist and Master. These are universities, academies, institutes, or conservatoires (music academies). National status may be awarded to a university or academy for research achievements. It is usually reflected in the name of an educational institution. The major national universities in Ukraine are the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, V. N. Karazin National University of Kharkiv, and I. I. Mechnikov National University of Odesa, just to name a few.

Ukrainian universities are multidisciplinary institutions of higher learning offering a broad selection of academic programs that cover wide areas of the natural and liberal arts, technical, economic and other areas of science, technology, culture and the arts. The country has both classic and specialized universities: technical, technological, medical, agricultural, cultural, and for the arts. Academies, as a rule, offer qualifications in a specific area of science, manufacturing, or education. Apart from universities and academies, a higher education can also be obtained at an institute. This is a type of educational institution that trains specialists for specific professional fields. An institute can also be a structural unit of a university.

As of the beginning of the 2010/2011 academic year, there were 369 institutions of higher learning of the 3^rd and 4^th accreditation levels in the country: 197 universities, 62 academies, 109 institutes, and 1 conservatory (musical academy). Of this number, 109 educational institutions bore national status.