Dear ladies and gentlemen! Dear panelists!

Thank you for taking part in our public debate, organized by the Foundation for Effective Governance in partnership with the UK-based Intelligence Squared.

One of the very first FEG’s projects, implemented in tandem with the World Economic Forum, was the Competitiveness Report of Ukraine and Ukrainian regions. Since then, the Foundation has prepared and published the updated version of this report for the third year in a row. The main goal of this report is to study conditions and requisites of successful cooperation on the global arena. As it turns out, the system of education, from primary to higher, is one of the key prerequisites to competitiveness in any country. And it is quite understandable.

If a country wants to be internationally competitive, it should move forward towards goods and services with higher value added, rather than run in circles with basic technologies and industrial processes. To meet this goal, the country needs highly qualified specialists, who can easily adapt to the changing conditions. These specialists will eventually make our country more competitive by winning competition against other companies and businesses – for resources, investments and markets.

We often speak of the environment favorable for investors, including those from overseas. One of the most important conditions to create this environment is to have a pool of talented and qualified people, who will fully meet the highest international standards. Let’s ask ourselves the question: Do Ukrainian graduates meet these standards?

The Ukraine Competitiveness Report 2009 places Ukrainian higher education on the 43rd position among 134 countries. This is a good result. In fact, this is the highest performance among the CIS member states. It is a well-known fact that Ukrainian IT specialists, physicists and mathematicians are appreciated worldwide both in business and academic fields. But is it enough to compete successfully for resources, investments and markets?

Today we will hear different opinions from a remarkable cohort of speakers, and afterwards we will discuss the motion together. Personally I am looking forward to this discussion.

Now I give the floor to Zurab Alasania, moderator at our debate.