In early September, Kyiv hosted KyivBookFest 2024, a book festival that brought together more than 100 publishers and thousands of book lovers. For four days, industry lectures, literary meetings, poetry readings, and even musical performances were held. Among the many topics of the festival was a discussion of the publication of educational literature. Today, this topic is very relevant, as every schoolchild and student should receive quality information and know how to find it.

During KyivBookFest 2024, the Kyiv School of Economics held a discussion entitled ‘Literature for Learning: What Challenges Does a Modern University Face?’.

The participants of the panel discussion were academic directors of educational programmes of the Kyiv School of Economics – Stepan Berko, Oleksandra Konopatska, Halyna Makhova, and moderators – members of the student self-government of the Kyiv School of Economics Victoria Germanchuk and Sofia Galimulina.

During the meeting, important issues related to educational literature were raised, one of them being the maintenance of a quality educational process by the availability of libraries with paper and electronic publications. Stepan Berko, Academic Director of the Bachelor’s degree programme in Law, believes that the difficulty of creating textbooks lies not only in financial challenges, but also in the length of time it takes to create high-quality educational literature as a result of the experience of teaching an academic discipline for many years.

Oleksandra Konopatska, Academic Director of the Artificial Intelligence Bachelor’s Programme, drew attention to the importance of access to both paper books and electronic textbooks. At the same time, the availability of the electronic format raises the issue of the threat of piracy, which may cause concern for some publishers. From the point of view of the educational process, Oleksandra believes that it is important to implement English-language materials, which is especially helpful for technical specialities that are less likely to involve a regional context.

Oleksandra also noted the high cost of quality educational literature, and mentioned that at foreign universities, students spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks. 

Another important challenge for young people is the balance between the accessibility of the textbook material and the need to accurately explain scientific concepts. According to Halyna Makhova, Academic Director of the Undergraduate Economics Programmes at the Kyiv School of Economics, the challenge is sometimes the overly scholastic style of domestic textbooks, which scares off both students and schoolchildren. This is because some textbooks are published to fulfil contractual obligations rather than to teach effectively. On the other hand, it is impossible to simplify educational material to the level of ‘dummies’, ‘tiktok’ and entertainment. Stepan Berko also believes that education should not entertain, but arouse interest.

The panelists were unanimous in their opinion that education is about making efforts.

‘To prepare graduates for a successful life in a fast-paced world, a university must be based on the transfer of fundamental knowledge. The source of this knowledge is time-tested and up-to-date books and other educational materials. Therefore, the formation of a culture of working with sources and textbooks at the university is a component of obtaining a quality education that will allow you to achieve sustainable success in life. We look forward to mutually beneficial cooperation with publishers and authors to create high-quality educational literature,’ commented Yuriy Dyachenko, Professor of the Kyiv School of Economics.

The participants of KyivBookFest 2024 agreed that the educational publishing market, as a component of the education system, is not easy to form. Ukrainians are just getting rid of colonial practices and getting used to the relationship of ownership of an intellectual product. Therefore, in the future, there will be more and more good textbooks, as well as book lovers.

KSE student Victoria Germanchuk: ‘KyivBookFest 2024 brought together people from different parts of the country, with different interests and professions, but all of them shared one common love – books. The atmosphere was extremely exciting! Conversations around new releases, autograph sessions, various panel discussions with favourite authors, and colourful stands from publishers created an incredible atmosphere. We, as representatives of the university, were impressed by how actively society supports the culture of reading and supports the Ukrainian book.’