“Higher education has to meet and to satisfy the needs of the growing Belarusian economy. The country needs specialists. Today there are not enough trained specialists. The innovation economy demands innovation in education”, said the head of the Belarusian government Sergey Sidorsky.

There are 43 state and 10 private higher education establishments in Belarus training specialists in various fields. In 2007 – 2008 there were 413,658 students in the country. There are 425 students per 10 thousand of the population.

The existing higher education system is harshly criticized

The Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus Petr Prokopovich stated that “we are walking around in circles in this field and still live of our Soviet ancestry”. He believes that “we lost a generation of construction workers which is extremely sensitive issue given the increased number of constructions enrolled in the country”. Petr Prokopovich doubted the reasonability of decreasing the number of experts to be trained in the sphere of banking, i.e. economists and financiers. “Over three thousand young specialists started working in the banks of the country this year. Bearing in mind the rapid development of the banking sector of the economy, the need in experts in this area will only increase”. Talking about the serious drawbacks of the higher educational system, Mr. Prokopovich named weak material and technical basis of the higher education establishments as well as significant shortage of rooms in the student dormitories. Today only 57% of students from other cities of Belarus find rooms in the student dorms, four dormitories are undergoing capital repairs. He proposed to elaborate a system of loans for higher educational establishments, which could be used to build student dorms, with an interest rate to be paid out from the state budget.

The Minister of Education, Aleksandr Radkov, pointed out to the “insufficient financial resources which could be used to equip higher education establishments, the latter have out of date laboratory equipment (70% is obsolete) and only 52% of the needed spaces”. Also the Minister Radkov specifically pointed out to the lack of close relations with the future employers.

So what would be the cost of the following reform?

Around 2.5 billion US Dollars is needed in order to implement the mentioned above State Programme using the state budget and around 356 mln US Dollars using extra-budgetary resources. These amounts break down in the following way: over 500 mln US Dollars from the state budget and 26 mil US Dollars of the extra-budgetary resources are needed to re-equip the training and laboratory basis of the higher education establishments. USD 1.5 bln is planned to be allocated in order to construct and reconstruct buildings of institutes of higher education and 37 million US Dollars just for simple repairs. The Prime Minister S. Sidorsky said that it was necessary to avoid the Soviet experience of “beating out” the money in order to implement the Programme. “We should not count on the budget resources only due to the fact that innovative development should not be detached from the financing coming from the innovation funds of enterprises and institutions”.

In the course of the implementation of the programme it is planned to increase the number of educational, scientific and experimental establishments from 24 in 2008 up to 66 in 2015. There will be more affiliated departments of institutions of higher education: there are 103 of them today and in 2015 there should be 296. It is planned that the leading enterprises and organizations will provide their premises for setting up laboratories and training classes for the higher education institutions.

The Draft Programme envisages introduction of the wide spread usage of informational technologies, 62 computer places will be equipped.

The government thinks that along with the training of skills of using the high-tech equipment, the quality of practical preparation of young specialists will be improved as well as their adaptation period at work places will become shorter.

Where to get the money from?

It is expected that the implementation of the State Programme will allow increasing the number of foreign citizens studying in Belarus from 6 thousand to 14 thousand by the end of 2015. As well, the volume of export of educational services will increase from 5.6 mln. US Dollars in 2008 up to 18.1 mln US Dollars in 2015. In the course of the implementation of the Programme the export of educational services will constitute 119 mln US Dollars.

Naturally, it is envisaged that the paid education will be developed further. It is not a secret that the number of educational services paid for by the government is decreasing every year and that the number of students paying for their education themselves is rapidly growing. As of today there are around 40 thousand students studying at their own cost. The number of students paying for their studies at some prestigious faculties is 3 to 5 times higher than the number of those who study at the cost of the government (for instance, the Humanities Faculty of the Belarusian State University at Psychology, WEB-Design and International Relations Departments). In addition to that, the cost of education is increasing literally every semester. The cost of studies at the Law Faculty and the Faculty of International Relations of the Belarusian State University constitutes 4 million 116 thousand Belarusian rubles. The highest cost of education is at the State Medical University, where the cost of education at the Faculty of Dentistry constitutes 5 million 700 thousand Belarusian rubles. Actually, the cost of education in the non-governmental higher educational institutions is cheaper compared with the state institutions’ paid departments.

Targeting for younger staff

In the course of a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, the Head of the Government Sergey Sidorsky underlined that it was necessary to elaborate approaches with regard to attraction of younger staff at the higher education institutions. “Students should be taught by younger staff with modern views on the development of the innovation type of the economy”, said the Prime Minister. Sergey Sidorsky quoted the average ages of the staff: in 1995, 30% of all professors were older than 60 years old, in 2001 – 60% and in 2008 – 80%. Today the half of readers surpassed the pension age and they are older than 60 years old. There are 23.5 thousand of teachers working at the institutions of higher education. However the issue of how to attract talented youth to stay at universities and to continue teaching still remains open.

The Draft Programme was approved as a basis. However it will be elaborated further in the course of the following month. Mr. Sergey Sidorsky said that the Programme should introduce conceptual approaches rather than general in order to resolve all the issues of the Belarusian educational system. The Education Minister Aleksandr Radkov expressed an opinion that all the financial input into the development of the higher education will be returned within 8 to 10 years.

Ludmila Korsak