CANADA COURIER

by Christopher Guly

Canada's academic ambassador to Ukraine

Six years ago, Dr. Bohdan Krawchenko left his job as head of the University of Alberta's Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies in Edmonton to return to his ancestral homeland.

His job was to help establish the Institute of Public Administration and Local Government - now called the Academy of Public Administration - in the Office of the President of Ukraine. He did that and remains its vice-rector.

During his spare time, Dr. Krawchenko, who grew up in Montreal, also set up the Graduate Studies Council at the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Just recently he stepped aside from the vice-rector's position there, which has been filled by a Ukrainian, Hryhory Nemyri. But Dr. Krawchenko still has a hand, on a voluntary basis, in the Mohyla Academy.

The German-born, 50-year-old Oxford University doctoral graduate in social studies was recently in Ottawa as part of an international conference on Ukraine. The two-day symposium was organized by the newly established Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa.

Dr. Krawchenko spoke about building Ukraine's new civil society. Certainly, he's been at the forefront of its development. Since it became operational in 1992, the public administration school has pushed senior bureaucrats through an intensive 12-month course on everything they ever wanted, or needed, to know about running a civil service.

"They are taught public management, which teaches them economics - especially public finance - law and the legislative process, administrative law and social policy, information technology, modern languages and urban management," said Dr. Krawchenko in an interview.

He calls the program "comprehensive" - and fast-track intensive, considering most public servants were never properly trained in how to do their jobs, let alone keep a country running, prior to Ukraine's 1991 declaration of independence.

Today, the Academy of Public Administration boasts 480 graduates, including two members of the Verkhovna Rada, the mayor of Lviv and senior officials employed by Cabinet ministers. For better or worse, Ukrainian taxpayers now have Dr. Krawchenko to thank, or blame, for how bureaucrats manage the country's operations.

Then there's the success story behind the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, which opened its doors last fall. This fall, 135 graduate students will enter their second year of master's level studies in eight disciplines, which range from economics to environmental studies. Another 135 students will begin their first year.

For his part, Dr. Krawchenko will remain in Ukraine for some time. He considers his work in "institutional development" as what ultimately "counts" in the end.

Though he has left Canada indefinitely behind as his place of residence, he apparently has taken its much-touted sense of modesty with him permanently.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 4, 1997, No. 18, Vol. LXV

| Home Page |