Journalism/Media Law:”Unruly” Media to Face New Rules in Britain

«Unruly» Media to Face New Rules in Britain

In a July article published by the Associated Press, writer Gregory Katz reported that Britian’s «unruly» media are likely to face new rules.

The article said that media organizations throughout the world like to portray themselves as defenders of public good and view themselves as fearless watchdogs ready to root out criminality. But problems occur when reporters and editors break the law and violate common decency and these problems must be addressed in a new system that forces newspapers to live up to basic standards, said Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron.

Britain’s press is supposed to be kept in check by the industry-funded Press Complaints Commission. But Cameron insists that the commission has failed in its mission, particularly in the recent investigation of a phone hacking scandal related to illegal activity at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World that had no teeth. Unfortunately there is no consensus on how the Commission can be replaced with a regulatory system that really works.

Cameron said the PCC, which replaced an earlier, even weaker self-regulatory group called the Press Council, is fatally flawed because it has no real investigative powers. He said a new, stronger version of the PCC may emerge that would actually be strong enough to prevent — and punish — future press abuses. The article said a second option would include the creation of a taxpayer-funded s agency with its mandate and powers defined by law, which would give it real power. There could also be a hybrid of the two systems.

But Cameron seemed to rule out the government agency concept when he said the new oversight agency must be independent of both the government and the newspaper industry. According to the article, he said the relationship between the two has been too cozy and must be reformed.

Media analyst Claire Enders was quoted in the article as saying said that print media is notoriously hard to regulate. But she said newspapers will now face tougher regulation, because so much wrongdoing has been exposed. Enders added that a much stricter code of conduct and an explicit sanction against companies that breach the human rights or civil rights of victims. The article said this could mean newspapers would have to adhere to codes set out in the stringent European Convention on Human Rights and face penalties when rights were violated.

Journalism:English-Language Press Flexing Its Muscles in Ukraine

English-Language Press Flexing Its Muscles in Eastern Europe
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: April 24, 2011
New York Times
KIEV, Ukraine — “Brian Bonner, the editor of The Kyiv Post, a small English-language newspaper here in the Ukrainian capital, received the first phone call even before his journalists had returned from their interview with the minister of agriculture. Other calls followed, growing increasingly shrill.

And soon enough, Mr. Bonner, a former reporter at The St. Paul Pioneer Press who moved here a few years ago for the adventure of working at an English-language newspaper abroad, found himself on a bizarre trip through the journalistic norms of former Soviet states.

Minutes later, an aide to the newspaper’s publisher began calling the editor, expressing concern about the tone of the questions to the minister, Mykola Prysyazhnyuk.

Eventually, the publisher called demanding that the newspaper drop the project and not write about the interview, Mr. Bonner said.

The ministry of agriculture later said it had not contacted the publisher asking that the article be withheld.

Media rights groups say that all too often at newspapers in this region, a phone call is all it takes to kill an article, even if only to save face for a public official who misspoke.

But when that approach was applied to an English-language newspaper with Western ideals, the phone calls did not work as intended. Mr. Bonner refused to kill the article and was fired, and the newsroom went on strike to support him.

The episode highlighted the spunky role English-language newspapers play in many Eastern European capitals, particularly in countries with repressive policies toward publications in the local language.

Distributed free in racks at bars and hotels, the papers blend nightlife reporting for tourists with hard-hitting news aimed at a highbrow audience of businesspeople and diplomats.

In Ukraine and Russia, these newspapers come under less scrutiny than their local counterparts, which made the move to muffle reporting at The Kyiv Post unusual. English-language newspapers like The Moscow Times, The Prague Post, The Budapest Times, The Slovak Spectator, The Baltic Times and The Krakow Post have been springboards for a generation of American journalists interested in working in the former East Bloc — though not in the servile role of many local publications.

“Kyiv Post had a great tradition of editorial independence,” Mr. Bonner said in an interview. “I don’t want the job if it’s not independent journalism. Who would want it?”

In the interview, reporters at The Kyiv Post, whose name is an alternative spelling for the Ukrainian capital, had asked Mr. Prysyazhnyuk about a hot topic in Ukrainian business circles — the appearance of favoritism in awarding grain export quotas to a trading company, Khlib Investbud, suspected of having insider ties with government officials. At one point, he said he did not know who owned the company, and “should not know this.” Later in the interview, he said he did know who the owners were.

After disregarding the calls from a representative of the publisher — Mohammad Zahoor, a British citizen with other business interests in Ukraine — Mr. Bonner was fired on the day of publication, April 15.

Most of the staff of 23 Ukrainians and seven Western journalists and editors then struck in protest, taking laptops to a city park and posting updates about the dispute on a Facebook page.

The recourse to social networking sites “shows how hard it is to practice censorship these days,” Mr. Bonner said.

While on strike, reporters and editors wrote that they were told by representatives of Mr. Zahoor’s publishing company, the Istil Group, that “independent journalism potentially threatens the company’s other investments in real estate, media and other areas.”

Repression of free speech has taken many forms in the former Soviet space, some far more violent than the pressure on publishers.

In Russia, four reporters for the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta have been killed in the last decade, in what appeared to be a poisoning, an assault with a hammer and two shootings. In Kazakhstan, an opposition journalist was once held down while assailants carved an X — the mark of the censor — on his chest with a knife. In Ukraine, prosecutors are pressing charges against a former president, Leonid Kuchma, related to the killing of the opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze in 2000. Mr. Gongadze was beheaded.

But in Ukraine, as elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, a major obstacle to routine public service journalism today is the ownership of newspapers and television stations either by the state or by publishers whose other business is beholden to government favors, Natalia Ligacheva, the director of Telekritika, a media monitoring group in Kiev, said in an interview.

“Nobody goes to the printer at midnight and seizes the print run these days,” Mr. Bonner said. “It’s all understandings with the publishers.”

In a compromise reached after publicity created on blogs by the journalists elicited a statement of support by an American Congressional delegation that happened to be visiting Kiev recently, Mr. Zahoor rehired Mr. Bonner, though as one member of a four-member board, rather than as editor in chief.

In a meeting with staff members, Mr. Zahoor acknowledged that they disagreed with his reasons for firing Mr. Bonner, but praised their commitment to editorial independence.

Mr. Bonner said the standoff was ultimately good for the Kyiv Post’s reputation. “Nobody wants to edit a paper that isn’t read, or doesn’t stir up controversy from time to time,” he said. “

Journalism/Ukraine: Ex-President Charged In Journalist’s Murder

The Financial Times, www.ft.com
US lawyer to assist Kuchma defenceBy Roman Olearchyk in Kiev , Published: March 28 2011 02:46
Leonid Kuchma, the former Ukrainian president who was charged last week by prosecutors in connection with the murder of a journalist in 2000, has hired Alan Dershowitz, the prominent US-based criminal defence lawyer, to his legal team. Mr Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor, is known for his involvement in high-profile criminal cases. He has made headlines in the US representing celebrities and advised on the defence of OJ Simpson. “I look forward to contributing my experience as a defence lawyer and specialist on forensic evidence to this case,” said Mr Dershowitz in a statement circulated by a spokesman for Mr Kuchma. “I am especially committed to the search for truth in this case.” Last Thursday, Ukrainian prosecutors charged Mr Kuchma, president from 1994 to 2005, with “exceeding his authority, which led to the death” of the journalist Georgy Gongadze.

Critical in his reporting of Mr Kuchma’s administration, Gongadze was abducted and killed in 2000. Three police officers were convicted in 2008 of taking part in the murder. Investigators are now seeking to show which senior officials may have given orders to carry out the crime. A police general is currently awaiting trial. People close to the investigation say he has given testimony implicating Mr Kuchma, president at the time, and Yuriy Kravchenko, the former interior minister who was found dead in 2005 with two gunshot wounds to his head. Journalists’ rights advocates in and outside Ukraine have accused Kiev of conducting a cover-up. The case has grown to symbolise widespread corruption and institutionalised impunity for Ukraine’s political and business elite. If charged with ordering the murder or complicity, Mr Kuchma would be one of only a few rulers of former Soviet republics to stand trial in a region where authoritarian and corrupt leadership are common. For the first time in the investigation, prosecutors announced last Tuesday that Mr Kuchma was a suspect. He has long denied involvement and claims to have been set up. Mr Kuchma was implicated in the murder by secret audio recordings allegedly made by a presidential bodyguard. A senior prosecutor said last Tuesday that the recordings figure as “material evidence”.In the statement, Mr Dershowitz challenged the reliability of the recordings, saying it was “relatively easy to change words on a digital recording to create guilty-sounding statements. Parts can be deleted, copied, pasted and altered”.
Financial Times
Editorial Comment
Kuchma charged
Published: March 27 2011 22:43
It has taken 11 years, but last week’s charging of Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine’s former president, in connection with the murder of the journalist Georgy Gongadze is a big step. The importance for Ukraine and today’s president Viktor Yanukovich – who says he wants to bring the country closer to the European Union – of satisfactorily solving the gruesome case is difficult to overstate.

The body of Gongadze, an investigative reporter often critical of Mr Kuchma’s presidency, was found beheaded in woods outside Kiev in late 2000. His family and journalists’ groups have have long suspected Mr Kuchma’s involvement, which he has denied. A transparent, fairly conducted trial allowing the former president to clear his name or be properly convicted could bring justice, and closure to a case that has haunted Ukraine for a decade. That could be particularly powerful in a country where the rule of law is feeble even by former Soviet standards, dominated by a shady oligarchic capitalism. There are, sadly, strong reasons to doubt such an outcome. Mr Kuchma may face further counts – he is so far charged only with “exceeding his authority” – but the 10-year statute of limitations on most crimes has expired. So the former president, even if found guilty of involvement, could escape jail, though prosecutors say courts can cancel the time limit. Yulia Tymoshenko, former premier and Mr Yanukovich’s foe, alleges the Kuchma case is a “bluff” to deflect criticism from the current government’s selective legal pursuit of her and several of her officials. Some speculate business backers of Mr Yanukovich may be using the case to pressure Mr Kuchma’s tycoon son-in-law. The case has risks for Mr Yanukovich, put forward as a presidential candidate in 2004, when alleged vote-rigging sparked the Orange Revolution, by some of Mr Kuchma’s backers. Prosecutors are considering as evidence tape recordings which, though never fully authenticated, appear to implicate the former president. Finding out who produced them is critical to getting to the truth. Yet the conduct of a proper trial would strengthen Mr Yanukovich’s claim to be determined to combat corruption and push through economic reforms. It could also help address criticisms that he has eroded democratic freedoms since coming to power a year ago. If he is serious about adopting European values, he has much work ahead. The case will be closely watched, in the EU and US too.
New York Times
WORLD BRIEFING EUROPE
Ukraine: Ex-Leader Is Charged in Journalist’s Killing
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
25 March 2011
Late Edition – Final
Former President Leonid D. Kuchma was officially charged Thursday in connection with the murder of a prominent investigative journalist. Though the precise nature of the charges remains unclear, prosecutors announced this week that Mr. Kuchma was suspected of ordering the 2000 murder of the journalist, Georgy Gongadze. Mr. Kuchma, whose decade as president was known for widespread corruption and political violence, could be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison if convicted, the Ukrainian media reported. Earlier, he said he was prepared to ”go through all the tortures of hell” to prove his innocence

Ukraine ex-president suspected in journalist murder AFP – Ukraine’s deputy Prosecutor-General Renat Kuzmin holds documents prior to his press conference in … by Anya Tsukanova
KIEV (AFP) – Ukraine opened a murder case Tuesday (last week) against ex-president Leonid Kuchma over the shocking 2000 beheading of journalist Georgy Gongadze in what became the most notorious crime in its post-Soviet history.The announcement by prosecutors came after years of pressure from Kuchma’s opponents for the former president to face trial over the brutal killing of the critical journalist and founder of the Ukrainska Pravda newssite.”A criminal case has been opened against Leonid Kuchma. He is suspected of implication in the murder of Georgy Gongadze,” deputy prosecutor general Renat Kuzmin told reporters.He added that Kuchma, president from 1994-2005, was now banned from leaving Ukraine amid the criminal investigation.Kuchma’s office confirmed that the former leader would appear at the prosecutor’s office for questioning at 10:00 am (0800 GMT) Wednesday, but refused to answer any other questions about the case.
Pressed repeatedly by reporters, the prosecutor stopped short of saying Kuchma was suspected of personally masterminding the murder. He said only that “Kuchma is now suspected of abuse of power and giving illegal orders to interior ministry employees that led to the death of the journalist”. The anti-Kuchma opposition at the time implicated the ex-president in the crime, pointing to tapes unearthed in 2000 where voices alleged to be of Kuchma and ex-interior minister Yury Kravchenko evoked eliminating Gongadze. The tapes — allegedly recorded in Kuchma’s office by one of his bodyguards Mykola Melnichenko — contain a voice resembling that of Kuchma suggesting to have Gongadze “kidnapped by Chechens”.
The tapes caused a sensation after they were made public by Socialist Party leader Olexander Moroz in 2000 and sparked mass demonstrations in the country calling for Kuchma’s resignation.In a major development, Kuzmin said that the tapes were now recognised as valid evidence in the case. Kuchma has always denied any involvement and the authenticity of the tapes has never been confirmed.Gongadze was kidnapped in September 2000 after leaving a friend’s apartment in Kiev.The authorities are holding in custody former Ukrainian interior ministry official Olexy Pukach, who was arrested in 2009 and confessed to personally strangling the journalist with his belt, then beheading him with an axe.In September 2010 prosecutors appeared to draw a line under the case by saying that Kravchenko — who committed suicide in 2005 — ordered the murder. Given that Kravchenko took his evidence to the grave, the move prompted accusations from Gongadze’s family that the authorities were seeking to pin all the blame on a dead man to protect someone of greater importance.
The probe took commentators by surprise, with some suspecting the idea was a media stunt aimed at ultimately whitewashing Kuchma and ending the years of accusations against him.”It’s more a PR operation rather than a real inquiry,” Volodymyr Fesenko, one of Ukraine’s leading political analysts, told AFP. “The outcome at the end could fully suit Leonid Kuchma.”Kuchma was president during the 2004 Orange Revolution uprising that forced the annulment of rigged presidential elections and a re-run which was won by liberal pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko. He tried to remain neutral during those convulsions although liberals suspected him of siding with the losing pro-Kremlin candidate Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych defeated the Orange Revolution leaders in 2010 presidential elections and the authorities have since opened criminal probes against some of his pro-Western opponents, including former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Internet/Technology: Ukraine Expected to Face Problems During Switch to IPv6

Ukraine Expected To Face Problems During Switch to IPv6
Interfax-UKRAINE– According to a recent Interfax article, the upcoming transfer from Internet IPv4 protocols to IPv6 (Internet Protocal version 6) is expected to cause Internet providers in Ukraine serious problems because many users do not have the necessary equipment to support the new IP address, said Serhiy Polishchuk, director of the Ukrainian Traffic Exchange Network UA-IX.

Polishchuk said only 3 percent of Ukrainian providers currently have IPv6 addresses. «This is the lowest rate in Europe,» he said.

This year in February, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) distributed 80 million IP addresses with the IPv4 protocol among five regional administrators. By fall 2011 responsibility for the admnistration of the protocols will be transferred to local providers who will not be able to give out any more IP addresses because they will no longer be available. For this reason Ukraine plans to switch to a new address system.

The upcoming transfer to Ipv6 is scheduled for June 8, 2011. On this day users will test the readiness of the global Internet community to switch from Ipv4 to Ipv6. Google, Bing, Facebook, and Yahoo will allow both IPv4 and IPv6 protocol users to have access to their sites for a 24 hour period.

Polishchuk says it is difficult to estimate how much money and time will have to be invested to support the switch to IPv6. « Everything depends on the equipment that has been already installed in networks. Large operators regularly modernize their networks and most likely use routers supporting new protocols,” he said.

Polishchuk said the Ukrainian Traffic Exchange Network UA-IX is holding a tender for the purchase of new equipment and plans to put the IPv6 protocol into operation on April 1, 2011.

AOL Agrees to Aquire The Huffington Post

AOL Agrees to Aquire The Huffington Post

According to AOL, the acquisition will solidify AOL’s strategy of creating a premier content network with local, national and international reach. Arianna Huffington will lead the newly-formed Huffington Post Media Group which will integrate all Huffington Post and AOL Content, including news, tech, women, local, multicultural, entertainment, video, community, and more. The new combined media group is expected to reach 117 million Americans and 270 million people globally.

AOL recently announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire The Huffington Post, the influential and rapidly growing news, analysis, and lifestyle website founded in 2005, which now counts nearly 25 million unique monthly visitors. The transaction is expected to create a premier global, national, local, and hyper-local content group for the digital age – leveraged across online, mobile, tablet, and video platforms. AOL believes the combination of AOL’s infrastructure and scale with The Huffington Post’s pioneering approach to news and innovative community building among a broad and sophisticated audience will mark a seminal moment in the evolution of digital journalism and online engagement. Following the close of this transaction, AOL will accelerate its strategy to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, and entertainment produced by thousands of writers, editors, reporters, and videographers around the globe.

As part of the transaction, Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post’s co-founder and editor-in-chief, will be named president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all Huffington Post and AOL content, including Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog, Patch, StyleList, and more.

AOL reported that it has agreed to purchase The Huffington Post for $315 million, approximately $300 million of which will be paid in cash funded from cash on hand. The Huffington Post is privately owned by its two cofounders, as well as a group of investors. The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of government approvals. The boards of directors of each company and shareholders of The Huffington Post have approved the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the late first- or early second-quarter 2011.

The Huffington Post over-indexes on educated, affluent users, reaching the key decision makers in C-suites around the globe. The Huffington Post speaks to this influential audience via a host of prominent voices on its group blog. Among those who have blogged on The Huffington Post are: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Larry Page, Diane Sawyer, Buzz Aldrin, Nora Ephron, Bill Maher, Madeleine Albright, Robert Redford, Katie Couric, Neil Young, Rahm Emanuel, Mia Farrow, Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Al Franken, among others.

Education: WikiLeaks Now Has A CopyCat for Academe

 According to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, WikiLeaks, scourge of governments worldwide, now has a copycat for academia. Called UniLeaks, the website is eager to publish your university’s deepest secrets. The site debuted recently with a pair of open letters to university leaders in Australia and Britain. The Australian activists who run UniLeaks are pushing for openness in the face of what they see as the corporatization of higher education. They complain of unprofitable courses abolished, employees made less secure, and students reduced “to mere customers or clients of the university.” UniLeaks has yet to back that bluster with any blockbuster scoops. But the site’s main administrator says it has received an “overwhelming” amount of correspondence from Britain-based students and academics. That support includes at least one potentially newsworthy data dump: an “entire e-mail repository” of a “large prominent university in the United Kingdom,” a database that seems to be limited to senior management at the institution.

According to the article, UniLeaks hopes to be an outlet for whistle-blowers in America, too. “Universities are unique in that they generally receive quite a deal of public funding,” says the administrator, a former student at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. “We feel that the general public has a right to have universities act very transparently, in a way that is accountable.” WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy group fronted by Australian-born Julian Assange, has already spawned a series of other knock-off sites. The most prominent one has been OpenLeaks, started by former members of WikiLeaks. Two separate environmental groups are vying for the name GreenLeaks. Then there’s a site about corruption in Russia. And another about the European Union. Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab, a project of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, was quoted in the article as saying that he always “thought the most powerful element of WikiLeaks was the idea of WikiLeaks, more than the actual organization. It’s an idea that is easily transferable in a thousand different ways.”

But can the idea take off in higher education?” The article said one of the big challenges for UniLeaks is generating enough interest from readers and potential sources. Benton pointed out that WikiLeaks itself had been around for some time before gaining mainstream attention for exposing diplomatic cables and documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A single source, Bradley Manning, is suspected of providing WikiLeaks with much of its famous content. “So in a sense it comes down to whether a site like this could have that sort of a breakthrough moment,” Benton said. “Is there a Bradley Manning who’s willing to do what he did?”

The article says there are existing places to spread anonymous online gossip about universities—places like CollegeACB, a site similar to the now-defunct Juicy Campus. UniLeaks professes to be different. It filters content, rather than allowing users to post directly. It accepts only material that is in the public interest, says the administrator. “We don’t accept rumor,” says the administrator.

So what is UniLeaks looking for? Internal reports. Evaluations. Research that’s being kept hidden. Contracts. E-mails. Anything confidential that falls under this guideline: “UniLeaks will accept restricted or censored material of political, ethical, diplomatic, or historical significance which is in some way connected to higher education.” Benton pointed out there’s “a whole sea of behavior that universities don’t like to publicize.” “Think of the equivalent to the diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks released,” he says. “This was material that was unusually forthright, that was intended purely for internal circulation. And I’m sure that there are equivalent memos and equivalent documents in lots and lots of colleges and universities that the president certainly has no interest in having see the light of day.”

Education: Long, Hot, Uncertain Summer for Ukraine’s Next Freshmen

TRANSITIONS ONLINE: Long, Hot, Uncertain Summer for Ukraine’s Next Freshmen by Christine Demkowych 2 August 2010 www.tol.org

Thousands of fresh Ukrainian high school graduates spend much of their summer trying to cut through a thicket of new university admissions procedures.

 KYIV| Thousands of students and parents flooded Ukrainian university campuses in a panic on the first day in mid-July that schools were to begin accepting admissions applications for the fall 2010 semester.

In Kharkiv, one school had close to 7,000 students lining up to submit documents in one day, a university rector said. At Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv about 5,000 students applying to master’s programs showed up to take entrance exams, an admissions employee said.

 The crush was on this year, as the Education Ministry had cut from three to two weeks the period for submitting documents in person.

  Despite the long lines, people waited patiently in scorching temperatures. Those who were planning to apply to multiple universities – a maximum of five is allowed – believed that starting early would help them submit paperwork to all the schools on their list within the designated time frame.

Young people on a street in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Creative Commons photo.

 Students will learn by 15 August whether they have been accepted at any of their chosen schools. The new academic year begins on 1 September.

 Students waiting in line commiserated over the frequent changes in the government-mandated admissions process: also new this year is a requirement that universities take high school grades into account rather than relying solely on standardized exams.

(for full story, go to: www.tol.org )

Education: Kyiv Mohyla Academy President Serhiy Kvit Advocates Real Change and Not Rhetoric for Ukraine’s Education System

Serhiy Kvit is president of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy in Ukraine, founded in 1615. He and only one other university rector in Ukraine, Borys Gudziak of Ukrainian Catholic University, have openly voiced concerns about the policies being implemented by Ukraine’s newly-appointed education minister, Dmytro Tabachnyk.  The Ukrainian press has reported that most other rectors have been critical of the previous leadership, which was instrumental in implementing the early stages of reforms according to the Bologna system of education that Ukraine joined in 2005.  Today’s interview with Serhiy Kvit offers readers a glimpse of the changes that can be expected in Ukraine under the new administration.

————————————————————-

CD: As you know, a new Education Minister, Dmytro Tabachnyk, was recently appointed in Ukraine.  What kind of changes can be expected in the educational arena?

Kvit: I do not believe there will be any signficant changes.  The primary message of the new education minister is aimed at university presidents. They are being told not to worry. Dmytro Tabachnyk has made it clear that no one will get in their way and that their lives will not be made difficult with a variety of reforms and problems.  They will be able to live in peace.  But one demand was put forth: loyalty to the new administration.  Any new administration hopes to obtain loyalty from representatives in the educational arena.  At the same time, for higher education institutions in Ukraine to develop there needs to be movement and change.  Peace only keeps corrupt post-Soviet practices in place.

CD:Why has there been criticism of the new education minister and his policies?

Kvit:  There has not been a lot of opposition toward the new minsiter.  Only two universities, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and the Ukrainian Catholic University, have openly spoken out against the new minister. Everyone else has been silent.  Opposition political forces and independent student organizations have protested against him.  This means the education community fairly easily agreed with the new policies. I see two reasons for this. First of all, everyone was irritated by the problems that developed from the simulated reforms implemented by the previous minister. Secondly, civil society in Ukraine is not sufficiently developed.  Moreover, the education sphere is innately very conservative.  The current calm that we have is tied to the fact that many Ukrainian universities have suppressed their animosity toward Dmytro Tabachnyk’s views of Ukrainian history and national identity. Some are also keeping silent about his chauvinist tendencies and his pro-communist speeches.

CD:  You were reportedly one of only two university presidents who chose to speak out against the new minister’s appointment.  What made you decide to be a vocal critic of the new administration when most other rectors reportedly criticized the previous education minister’s policies?

Kvit:  My decision is connected to the idea and spirit of the university. No university can be without integrity and dignity. A university is more than a place for research and study.  It serves as a platform for academic freedom, including freedom of speech. The history of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy is inseparably linked with the history of Ukraine.  As a representative of Ukraine, I am much concerned with its interests and aspirations. The point of Tabachnyk is that Ukraine is a kind of temporary historical misunderstanding, not a European state.  What we are seeing today is a continuation of many centuries of struggle for Ukrainian independence. That is why I did not have any other decision.

CD:  Isn’t it true that most teachers and administrators at universities throughout Ukraine were opposed to the administrative changes connected to the Bologna system and that many did not implement in their classrooms the required changes—such as adding written vs. oral exams, creating a multiple-assessment grading model based on a 100-point system, and using an interactive teaching approach– that were mandated by the previous administration?

Kvit:  This is such a hard question. Most rectors today are more concerned about the survival of their universities and not about development. This is why it is important to create a completely new situation for our universities according to Western standards. Our university leaders, along with the country’s president, our government, parliament and the whole of society, should have a shared understanding of what a contemporary university is and what steps need to be taken to create it. There cannot be a civil society without autonomous universities. I am sure that we will eventually attain success in this area, but I doubt we will see any serious changes in the near future.

CD: But what about the teachers and the administrative changes in the classroom?

Kvit:  Since teachers did not see real change happening in the overall education system some were reluctant to implement the [required] administrative changes in their classrooms. I believe that faculty members are more progressive than administrators and that we could have their support for real reforms.

CD: What will remain the same under the new minister?

Kvit:  This is not a very simple question. One must understand that when previous Education Minister Ivan Vakarchuk was in office no significant changes took place in the education sphere. In contrast to the «new» policies envisioned by Tabachnyk, the reforms under the previous administration were simulated and we had pro-Ukrainian rhetoric.  Now we have an outright rejection of the earlier reforms and we have anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. The primary difference between the two ministers is related to the issue of patriotism and the lack of it [under the new administration]. Education in Ukraine has undergone a steady decline since the end of the 1980s, when the country was still part of the Soviet Union. In the near future we will not see the growth of academic research within Ukrainian universities.  Universities will not maintain autonomy and Ukraine will not implement western standards for assessing quality teaching, learning and research standards.

CD:  You say that the new administration is rejecting the earlier reforms but the ministry says it plans to unify Ukraine’s education system with other countries.

Kvit: In the post-Soviet period, signing a document does not mean that a promise will be fulfilled.  Since 2005 we have only had a simulation of reforms without any significant changes that correspond to the Bologna education system.  We talked a lot about reforms and we created Bologna rhetoric.  That is all.  It means, Ukraine needs to really begin the reforms, which will change our outdated and corrupt system of higher education.

CD:  The Ukrainian press reported a couple of months ago that independent testing, implemented by the previous education minister,  will be suspended.   But a review of the testing system shows that students were taking tests just this past month.  What is the current status with the tests?

Kvit:  I believe that Tabachnyk will not be able to fully suspend independent testing because it has a lot of support from the Ukrainian public.   Generally speaking, independent testing is an example of the «half-reforms» that we have in our education system.  From one perspective, this is a very important endeavor, the success of which is tied to the activities of the previous Ukrainian president and a few governments. This type of admissions test is progressive and it truly protects the most talented students. From another perspective, the realization of similar reforms should occur in tandem with the reformation of Ukrainian universities, particulary the reduction of the number of universities that exist in Ukraine and the improvement in quality education offered by universities. Today in Ukraine we have an  incredible number of universities: 256.  Instead of creating conditions for improving universities, Ivan Vakarchuk, our previous education minister, focused on strange and unnecessary efforts, such as the battle against the autonomy of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy. Vakarchuk did not like, for example, our original admissions policy, which has been in effect for the past 18 years and has worked quite well. It should be noted that our admissions test was the basis for the independent testing policy originally implemented by Vakarchuk, but which now may be cancelled.  Rather than utilize our experience with independent testing, Vakarchuk fought against it.  He also tried to stop the mandatory English-language tests for KMA students.  In other words, independent testing is necessary for quality, competitive universIties, which Ukraine does not have. So if it is cancelled, few universities will protest.

CD: So was some of the opposition connected to the fact that students in Russian-speaking regions had difficulty taking the admissions test because they are not fluent in Ukrainian?

Kvit: Regional protests against the admissions test were not specifically connected to the use of the Ukrainian language on the test.  Students in Ukraine have been able to substitute the Ukrainian language admissions test for tests that are offered in a language that better suits their language competency. However, the policy of allowing students to take the test in another language is not doing them any favors.  These students are not planning to study in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Russia, etc.  Allowing them to take the test in another language only delays their fluency in Ukrainian, which is needed for all university classes in Ukraine.  Right now the only protests we hear about the use of the Ukrainian language  is coming from political interests.  But the real problem with the testing system was that Vakarchuk did not introduce it correctly.  Universities themselves must see the need for a transparent and ethical admissions policy before it can be implemented.  In the U.S., for example, universities utilize a wide range of admissions requirements because they are interested in selecting only the best students for their schools.  In Ukraine we need to create a base of strong, reputable and autonomous universties that would compete for the best students.  Our universities are not interested in the standardized testing system because the goal of many of our universities is not to provide a quality education but to survive in these hard economic times. Bribes are a form of profit for them.  Vakarchuk said universities should teach and not worry about the quality of students they accept.  That’s why the system of testing should have been introdued in tandem with the reforms.

CD:  Education Minister Tabachnyk was quoted in an UNIAN article as saying that the money allotted for publishing Ukrainian text books by the previous minister, reported as 30 million UAH,  will arrest the ministry’s accounts. The article quoted Tabachnyk as saying that «not a single bus has been purchased for village schools in two years and many programs have been scrapped.» What was the reason for publishing the books?

Kvit:  Such announcements should not be taken seriously. Any new minister has reasons to criticize his predecessor.  Due to the financial crisis many programs typically funded by the state were not supported because of the buget crisis. The books were published with funds from the state budget and Vakarchuk may not have been involved with this.  But I certainly do hope that state-supported educational programs  in Ukraine will receive funding under the new minister’s leadership.

CD: What future changes do you suggest for the education system in Ukraine?

Kvit:  I’ve mentioned some of them.  But I will summarize them here.  Ukraine should fulfill it’s so-called Bologna declaration responsibilities with regard to integrating Ukraine’s education system with Europe.  This did not happen under the previous administration and it’s obvious that it will not happen under the new leadership. Euro-integration, or, more correctly, the Western-oriented integration strategy of Ukrainian higher education and research requires concrete steps in order to implement the reforms. This includes providing universities with greater autonomy since today the state controls in an authoritarian manner all aspects of university life: costs, academic affairs, staffing questions. Another step involves changing university structures to incorporate academic research. This second step is important because during the Soviet period it was generally believed that universities must teach and that academic research must be carried out by the National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine. Other steps require the introduction of market mechanisms connected to university ranking systems, and making English-language fluency mandatory for students at all universities throughout the country.

CD: Before we conclude, can you comment on the recent vote in Parliament to reduce Ukraine’s secondary education system from 12 to 11 years of education.   Some officials say the decision was made to cut expenses, while others say there’s a shortage of qualified teachers.  Will this prevent high school graduates from matriculating to  Western universities?

Kvit: This is more of a political decision.  There’s no logical or professional reason for it.

Education/Twitter: University Admission Officials’ Tweets Fall on Deaf Ears

 

Admission Officials’ Tweets Fall on Deaf Ears

In a July 1, 2010 Chronicle of Education article, writer Kelly Truon reported that a new study shows that students are not responding to new efforts by colleges to connect with prospective enrollees through Twitter.  

The article said that teenagers rely on college visits and Web sites to learn about colleges, rather than social-media outlets. “When it comes to Twitter, students are barely on the site at all,  let alone for college research purposes,” Truon reported.

Truon cited Abe Gruber, director of marketing at Bloomfield College, who found in his recent study that while 40 percent of college admissions offices are active on Twitter, only 15 percent of prospective students expressed interest using in Twitter to learn about colleges.

Gruber surveyed 200 prospective freshmen and 70 admissions offices in his study, which is not available online. He presented his findings at the Hobsons Connect U conference this week in Minneapolis.

The study’s findings show that Twitter is the second most popular form of social media used by college admissions offices (trailing Facebook by 28 percentage points). Twitter is the most up-and-coming form of social media used by colleges, with 35 percent of admissions officials planning to start accounts in the next year.

Journalism: Hillary Clinton Advocates Freedom of Speech in Ukraine During Visit to Kyiv

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton began her tour of former Soviet-bloc countries Friday by warning the Yanukhovych administration that concrete actions and not pure rhetoric will maintain the democratic freedoms that were instituted in Ukraine following the 2004 Orange Revolution.

Clinton expressed concern over the complaints of harassment and censorship that Ukrainian journalists and civic activists have reported since President Yanukovych was elected in February.

Promoting democracy is a major theme of Clinton’s trip, which will also take her to Poland, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.  In one of her speeches Clinton said she was more concerned about “rollbacks in democratic development than [Ukraine's] the orientation toward Russia”.

In a July 3, 2010 Washington Post article, writer Mary Beth Sheridan reported that Alonya Getmanchuk, one of the civic activists who met with Clinton,  was relieved that Clinton put emphasis on democracy and freedom of speech during her visit to Ukraine.

The Washington Post article went on to point out that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko told reporters that the country’s news media continue to freely criticize the government, which he called “evidence we believe in openness and transparency.”

Sheridan said  U.S. officials noted that incidents of alleged harassment and censorship “have not risen to the level of persistent government repression”.  The U.S. officials added that “ some media owners might have sought to ingratiate themselves with the new government by pressuring their employees to produce positive stories”.

The article said that Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, wrote in a recent Brookings Institution paper that “that there are grounds for concern, but it is too soon to say there is a systematic attempt to roll back democracy.”