A material was published on BBC Ukraine titled “The Country Needs Engineers, but Young People Choose Trendy Professions. What the Admission Campaign Showed.” Among the reasons why students enroll in philology, law, and management rather than engineering, one of the most frequently mentioned is the low level of mathematics knowledge. For me, this publication became yet another example of how society seeks a simple answer to a complex question.
Mathematics is Not the Main Reason
Let’s analyze why a low level of mathematics knowledge is only the tip of the iceberg. Even if resources are invested in improving math skills, in 10 years we would not get more engineers, but rather more of the same philologists and lawyers—just with better math knowledge.
First of all, it should be noted that students’ mathematics knowledge is indeed declining. However, it declines roughly in proportion to the overall decline in students’ knowledge. One could say it’s a “bad generation,” but these students last experienced regular school conditions six years ago.
Nevertheless, there are still enough capable graduates to fill the existing opportunities in engineering programs, but there is no surge in demand.
Those with technical education might prefer to explain this by saying that their field is very difficult and not everyone can handle it. This approach flatters the ego but does not correlate strongly with reality. For example, medicine, which is certainly no easier than engineering, ranks in the top 10 specialties by popularity, as do computer sciences, which cannot be called “humanities.” Studying the intricacies of law is also far from simple.
Thus, in my opinion, the reason is not that engineering is more difficult, but that it is less advantageous for students in terms of potential employment.
Market Reality
Engineers might argue that salaries have recently increased significantly due to defense orders, but not all engineers work in the defense sector, and no one can predict how long these orders will last over the next 5–10 years.
However, the two main disadvantages of engineering education as a choice for students are not related to salary.
The first is early specialization. At 17, a student and their parents must determine the specific profession in which the person will work for their entire career—whether building airplanes, ships, bridges, buildings, or industrial facilities.
In fields like law or philology, the question of career choice is mostly postponed by 4–5 years. This gives these fields a significant advantage, as the labor market changes very dynamically, and a 17-year-old often cannot decide what music they like, let alone what profession they will pursue for the next 40 years.
Even computer science has an advantage over engineering in this regard, as it also allows professional specialization at later stages.
Challenging Geography
The second disadvantage is job availability. Ukraine does indeed need engineers. However, if we map the demand onto the locations of enterprises where these engineers are needed, we see a strong imbalance favoring a few cities.
Seventy percent of the population lives outside large cities. For example, a student from Vinnytsia or Bila Tserkva who chooses aerospace engineering will most likely not be able to work locally. They would need to move to Kyiv or Dnipro, where these productions are concentrated.
Similarly, shipbuilding is mostly concentrated in southern cities. Many engineers must move every six months or annually to different cities when large projects are being built, sometimes even across countries.
Thus, for most families, sending a child into engineering requires readiness for the child to relocate permanently to another city.
In the Soviet Union, this problem was solved centrally. People were gathered from all “republics” and sent to Mykolaiv to build ships or to Dnipro to work on rockets.
In a market economy, this presents families with a range of economic, social, and cultural challenges.
Social Aspects
First, there is the issue of housing. Rent can consume 20–30% of a salary. Most low-income families consider this a significant amount. Therefore, even when choosing a different city for education, they often look to places where relatives can host the student until they become financially independent.
Next is the question of social support. If a family has members requiring additional care—about 3–5 million people—children are unlikely to seek work far from home.
This is where positions in companies like Nova Poshta, ATB, and Aurora come into play, as they exist in almost every small city. A competent graduate in management can expect within a few years to become a branch manager while living in their region and earning a decent salary.
The same applies to philologists—translators, tutors, and administrators with English skills are needed in any city. Lawyers and economists, too.
Statistically, with few exceptions, a graduate in law, philology, or management will find a good job in their region several times easier than a graduate in engineering.
Parents mostly understand this intuitively, guiding their children toward fields where they can study near home or find work locally after graduation.
Thus, in my opinion, merely improving students’ overall knowledge or mathematics skills will not significantly increase the number of applicants for engineering fields. Achieving this would require either extremely strong incentives—where, hypothetically, one engineer guarantees a prosperous life for their family—or a well-designed combination of factors and informational campaigns to attract students to a less advantageous choice.
How to Find New Engineers?
I do not strongly believe in the ability of the Ukrainian state to implement competent and effective policy, so I think new engineers must be sought in another way.
Specifically, one could use the experience of retraining adults as engineers, which was applied in the 1930s–60s in the Soviet Union, when a large network of evening universities and engineering courses was opened for factory workers and former military personnel. This model increased the number of people with engineering education from 100,000 to 2 million.
Of course, the quality of these engineers’ training was inferior to full education from scratch (as with many things in the USSR). However, this approach allowed for preparing enough personnel to create a large network of aeromodelling and radio engineering clubs and ensure sufficient technical teachers in schools, which in turn increased the number of well-prepared engineers.
Such a program also requires state involvement, but in a much simpler form. Nevertheless, the main question remains how to find incentives for an adult to switch to an engineering profession, which will require significant effort.
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