OREANDA-NEWS. On 29 April 2009 was announced, that SCM and Korrespondent agreed to cooperate on SCM's Compass university ranking realized with help of Rinat Akhmetov's Foundation for Development of Ukraine. Korrespondent will be a media-partner for the project.

Results of the second Compass national ranking of Ukrainian universities will be presented before the start of enrolment campaign at a press conference on 21 May 2009 in Kiev. Also, the findings will be published on 22 May 2009 in Korrespondent and a daily Segodnya, which is has been an information partner of the project for the second year running.

SCM

"One of main goals of Compass is to unite all stakeholders and establish a single national university ranking. Involvement of Korrespondent as a partner of Compass is a stride towards this goal and also recognition of the ranking, its practical value for secondary school leavers and their families, as well as the signal of trust to it. Korrespondent has solid expertise in making its own university ranking. Cooperation with this publication under Compass project is not a formal partnership, but a joint effort to achieve a common result", said Natalya Yemchenko, Director of Public Relations and Communications at SCM. "The format of compilation and promotion of Compass has been aligned with the best global practices as mush as possible today. We, SCM and Rinat Akhmetov's Foundation for Development of Ukraine, are developing it, while the leading Ukrainian media - a weekly Korrespondent and a daily Segodnya - deal with promotion. This is the way the most reputable western rankings are promoted: the CHE ranking is published by Stern, QS World University Ranking is a joint product of QS and Times, etc".

Korrespondent would make and publish an own annual university ranking before. Having joined Compass, its executives decided, however, not to produce it this year.

"Our goals agreed with SCM's targets since the very beginning", says Vitaliy Sych, editor-in-chief of Korrespondent. "SCM and we wished to encourage entrants to base their choice of school not on formal but on actual education quality indicators. This year we decided to consolidate efforts with SCM to provide our readers with this opportunity".

Compass 2009 will cover 234 Ukrainian universities of the 3-4 levels of state accreditation training bachelors, specialists and masters in five areas: business/economy, law, engineering/technical professions, information technologies (IT) and architecture/construction.

Ad hoc methods have been developed for Compass ranking to include the information delivered by comprehensive polls. Such researches assess whether education services meet demands of the labour market and give the general evaluation of universities by target audiences: employers (big and medium-size businesses), graduates (graduates of Ukrainian universities in 2003-2008), employers - experts (representatives of companies whose operations involve specialists in the mentioned areas). The research will include interviews with 1000 big and medium-size employers and 1200 graduates across Ukraine.

Compass 2009 will be implemented in line with improved methods with support of the leading experts representing the Academy of Education of Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the World Bank, Confederation of Employers of Ukraine, the State Employment Centre as well as the Foundation for Effective Governance.

Ranking compilation approaches were audited by national and international experts in education and labour market. The ranking was developed by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).

For more information about the SCM’s programme Contemporary Education, Compass university ranking and Discussion Club, please visit the corporate website of SCM Group, section SCM's Social Projects/Contemporary Education.