Government launches pilot project to increase autonomy of vocational education institutions

A new model for financing and establishing supervisory boards in vocational education institutions. DECIDE Project experts will support the pilot project of the Ministry of Education and Science.

At the request of the Ministry of Education and Science, DECIDE, KSE, and RST experts have been working for over a year on modelling, developing and agreeing on a draft procedure for implementing a pilot project to reorganise municipal vocational education institutions into municipal non-profit companies and purchase vocational education services using local budget funds.

The pilot project aims to test the innovations provided for in the Law of Ukraine ‘On Vocational Education’.

In early December, the Government adopted a resolution approving the procedure for implementing the pilot project.

Over the next two years, DECIDE expert team will support the implementation of changes for participants in the pilot project.

In particular, municipal vocational education institutions are to be transformed into municipal non-profit associations. The change in their organisational and legal form will give them greater financial and managerial autonomy.

Within this autonomy, institutions will be able to change their approaches to remuneration, including:

• use a contractual remuneration system;

• abandon the tariff scale;

• introduce their own official salaries and bonus systems;

• enter into individual agreements (contracts) using personalised approaches to remuneration.

Thanks to financial autonomy, reorganised vocational education institutions will be able to use the funds they earn under contracts for the provision of educational services on the basis of a financial plan, without the use of a budget estimate. This will enable more efficient management decisions to be made and funds to be directed towards the development and improvement of the quality of education.

DECIDE Project experts will provide expert support to vocational education institutions participating in the pilot project during their transition to the new organisational and legal form.

As part of the pilot project, DECIDE experts will also support the creation of supervisory boards for municipal vocational education institutions participating in the pilot project, with the involvement of regional employers. Pursuant to the new Law of Ukraine ‘On Vocational Education’, the role of such supervisory boards is increasing, as they will:

• provide proposals on the scope and directions of financing educational services from local budgets;

• influence the quality of services provided in vocational education by approving educational programmes.

Another important aspect of the new law is the possibility for local governments to purchase relevant services from municipal vocational education institutions on the basis of contracts using the Methodology for calculating the cost of such services.

Participation in the project enables vocational education institutions to change their funding model and transform their management system to comply with the new provisions of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Vocational Education’ with the expert support of DECIDE expert group.

For more details, click on the link to read the Resolution.

The DECIDE project is implemented by NGO DOCCU and PHZH International Projects in Education with the support of the Embassy of Switzerland in Ukraine.