Belarusian Higher Education: Readiness to EHEA Admission. Alternative Report - Part II

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III. OTHER KEY AREAS

1. Academic mobility

The new educational code identifies the international mobility as activities directed to students and faculty exchange, research projects and educational services in country for foreign citizens. The universities international cooperation activities including academic mobility are regulated by the international agreements, to which Belarus is signatory, HEIs international programs offered by the organizations to which country is a member and by a few other countries that have official representation in Belarus.  The Ministry of Education must approve participation in all international cooperation programs including academic mobility. The educational code provides the legal framework for it but mostly it is regulated by secondary legal acts approved either by the Ministry of Education or the Council of Ministers.

International academic mobility participation is very low due to being administratively regulated by the Ministry although the legal framework allows HEIs to follow their own international cooperation goals. All activities are controlled by and reported to the Ministry. Academic mobility has become a part of general HE development based on the objectives of new National Program for Higher Education Development for 2011-2015. Currently, the following exchange program officially available for students and faculty: Erasmus Mundus, DAAD (up until now it provided support mostly for Ph.D. students), Fulbright program, Universities’ exchange programs within their own international cooperation agreements if exists (exchange program with China run by the Belarusian State University in the past), Swiss internships and scholarships for engineering and IT.

In addition, there are a number of other scholarships programs for exchange and internships but the third party – diplomatic missions and international organizations present in Belarus, normally administers them.  The Council of Ministers decision #1617 on “Issues related to studying at foreign HEIs” approved the Rules of Procedures regulating the state funding for academic mobility on November 30, 2011. The rules of procedures define the selection criteria and requirements for the applicants, funding structure.   The rules of procedures also determine the duration of study – up to one year, which may not constitute the completion of the chosen courses as well as a number of place for which funding is available. As it currently stands, the number of place determined by the Ministry of Education is at around 50. 

Students’ mobility

Students’ mobility  remains low. The participation level in Erasmus Mundus program is at about 65 persons during its 4 years presence in Belarus. The Ministry of Education data says that 250 students participate in exchange programs during 2009-2011 against government claims that annual mobility turnover is 3,000 (including CIS countries). The official sources sates that 141,000 students participated in different exchange programs in 1996-2004 rising to 161,000 by 2007. These figures do not have any basis. Based on our own review of the situation, we can state that between 2,000 and 3,000 students went through different mobility programs during 1996-2007. Those programs were not funded by the state.

At present, three different mobility types exist in Belarus.

1. Official exchange programs. They are recognized and accepted by the state
2. Informal mobility when students leave for studying abroad at their own expenses (parents cover the costs). These students are also enrolled to vocational study programs at Belarusian HEIs in many cases. This enables them to receive Belarusian degree (diploma) to avoid going through the qualification recognition process regularly resulting in Ministry’s rejection to confirm foreign degree. 
3. Alternative mobility. These are the programs launched by different countries and specifically designed for Belarusian students (Polish Kalinovsky program, EHU scholarships, ect.)

Starting from 2012, Belarusian government plans to support up to 50 students through the state funded mobility program in accordance with new Council of Ministers decision (#1617) from November 30, 2011. It doesn’t seem to be enough to increase mobility participation. For example, in 2010/2011 academic year 146 students went to study through Kalinovsky program alone. This number is 3 times more than what Belarusian government is ready to support in attempt to boost mobility and meet Bologna requirement for raising mobility participation to 20% mobile graduates in EHEA.

Faculty mobility

This remains a grey area within the academic mobility because there is no public information on it.  On the other hand, we can confirm that faculty mobility exist as their own private undertakings. The universities do not have financial means to support such mobility as well as there is a very few programs supporting this (DAAD and Fulbright programs). The new National Program for HE development stresses the importance of international component through the exchange and attracting international faculty to teach at English language programs.  There is a very few English language programs.  Among them are MBA program at Belarusian State University funded by USAID and Telecommunication Networks and Information Security in Telecommunication at Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radio Electronics. Although for international students it is considered a low cost programs- $4,250 as of July 2011 (2011/2012 academic year) - to compare to similar ones in Europe and North America. However, the low tuition fee doesn’t seem to be main reason why foreign students are not keen to study in Belarus. The state considers the increase in number of foreign students at Belarusian universities as additional cash for struggling economy but not for the benefit of strained higher education finance. The lack of visiting faculty at those programs is also great concern among academic community. Current law doesn’t provide any legal framework for hiring foreign faculty except Russian nationals as well as rules, procedures and guidance to do so.

We want to underline that unless administrative control and further politicizing of higher education including mobility participant selection process sees to exist there will be no progress made in this area.

We strongly believe that the following actions must be in place to boost the academic mobility:

1. Launching alternative mobility scheme that will envisage the countries based scholarship support for Belarusian students who are repressed at their home university for social active position and their political aspiration that don’t fall into the state promoted policies. We do not exclude that this might turn into somewhat continuous study on the full-time bases.
2. Opening dual degree programs that will include mobility component for students, faculty and staff.
3. Developing legal framework adhering to best European practices in the field of higher education.
4. Establishing transparent selection process without state control and run with the participation of independent evaluators.
5. Starting the complex higher education system reform to incorporate the European standards for degree division, programs and curriculum structures.

2. The Social Dimension of Higher Education

Work to strengthen the social dimension of higher education aims at realizing the aspiration expressed by the EHEA Ministers at their 2007 meeting that “the student body entering, participating in and completing higher education at all levels should reflect the diversity of our populations”. Please describe the social support mechanisms for students in your country.

Please provide a description of the main achievements in strengthening the social dimension of higher education in your country as well as of the main challenges in strengthening it further, including your priorities, plans and timetable in this respect.

It is suggested the description comprises an outline of the social composition of the student body in your country, including an overview of possible under-represented groups and whether your country has any national targets for access and completion in higher education of students from under-represented groups. In this context, it may be relevant to describe whether there are systematic differences between study programs and/or institutions (e.g. in terms of the profile of study programs or the geographical location of the institutions within the country) and whether there are national or institutional strategies in place for making the student body reflect the diversity of your national population. A description of current data collection in this area as well as plans and timetable for further improving such data collection would also be welcomed.

Belarus has made significant progress and achieved a lot in providing social security for disadvantaged social groups. Constitution of the Republic of Belarus and new Education Code ensure equal opportunities and access to education to all individuals without any discrimination on sex, race and nationality grounds. The following social groups had advantages in access to HEIs till 2011: applicants from rural areas, people with disabilities, orphans, winners of national contests in specific subject areas, children from low income families, individuals suffered after Chernobyl catastrophe, etc.  Access to higher education for disadvantaged social groups is stimulated by different measures: specific admissions rules and requirements, students’ stimulation mechanisms (stipends, min social standards in education, reduced transportation fare) specific social packages for young specialists upon completion of their study, etc. However, government doesn’t go beyond what it is already in place and doesn’t apply other available mechanisms to allow access to higher education for broader social groups. For example, the educational services differentiation and modernization in accordance with the social groups need could be one of them.

Geographically, higher education is uneven. Most of the HEIs are located at the capital – Minsk with 22 public HEIs and 9 private. The Higher Education Institutions distribution by regions is as follows: Brest - 4; Vitebsk - 5; Gomel - 7; Grodno - 3; Mogilev - 5.

In 2010 53% of students population were studying in Minsk. High HEIs concentration in Minsk put youth migration at a rise and creates certain problems in settling them in another location. 65% of students in Minsk HEIs are not provided with dormitory accommodation. Those who are renting accommodation receive compensation of  at about 10 euro (105,000 BLR) which is 10 times less than real rental cost.

The study in Belarusian language remains problematic and unresolved. Based on the census results 53,2% of the populations indicated Belarusian as their native language while 41,5% referred to Russian as native. In reality, 23,4% of population uses Belarusian on a daily basis and 70,2% uses Russian. Belarusian and Russian languages are both official state languages in accordance with the law. In reality, higher education system doesn’t have an educational program fully taught in Belarusian thus making it impossible to receive higher education in Belarusian language for some social groups. Civil activists have been demanding to open at least one HEI offering educational programs in Belarusian but the authorities have ignored this. The references to national and cultural values of educational policies are not acknowledged in new education code.

Another socially disadvantaged group experiencing problem with access to higher education is people with disabilities. Based on the information obtained from organization “Office for people with disabilities rights” people with disabilities are facing numerous problems. The main problems among others are that HEIs are not equipped for them and don’t have programs designed specifically for them. Statistics speaks for itself: 6% of people in wheelchairs received higher education, 10,7% - people with vision disabilities and 6,3% - with hearing disabilities. E- learning programs are accessible for this category but only on tuition fee basis against other forms of study. Mentally disabled people, people with nerves system disabilities and anomaly disabilities are the most vulnerable group. There is a vivid example of disabled people discrimination in access to higher education. Female with vision disability since childhood was refused admission to the Belarusian State University at the documents submission stage. The University’s administration reasoned their decision that they are not equipped for such people. However, this individual went to claim that she has the same rights to higher education as any other young person and was granted the possibility to pass entrance exams. Her results were outstanding and she was admitted to Law Faculty. However, this is one among few positive outcomes in similar situations.  In fact, none of Belarusian universities is equipped to accommodate disabled people for studying there.

There is also very narrow niche in access to education for elderly and disabled group of people due to the fact that life learning approached was viewed as professional skills development for employed part of population leaving these groups outside.

Informal education is not considered as a higher education degree. It has not been legalized in new education code and not viewed as a part of HEIs educational services.

IV. VALUES AND FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

1. Academic freedom and institutional autonomy

Please describe the fundamental values underlying your higher education system andprovision. It is suggested that the description includes an outline of the legal provisions concerning academic freedom and institutional autonomy as well as a description of how these fundamental values are ensured in practice. It is further suggested that reference be made to provisions of the Magna Charta Universitatum5 in this respect.

Institutional autonomy

The Belarusian higher education went through different stage of transformation to incorporate international educational standards during 1993-2004. In 2011 the new Educational Code came in force and once again reconfirmed the state ownership of classical universities and majority of higher education institutions.

The code assigns main decision-making role to the governmental bodies such as the Ministry of Education, the Council of Ministers and the President. The Universities Rectors Council was established in the past and is supposed to play the role of initiator of educational reform, advisory and monitoring role but the legal framework regulating their activities are not developed and their role is minimized in the process of reform. The Belarusian HEIs organizational structure represents bureaucratic centralized management system.

The University’s Rector, key position within the HEI, is approved  and appointed by the Ministry and the President. The rector is not accounted to any internal governing body, public  and academic community. The private HEIs fall into the same category as state in decision on Rector’s appointment.  None of Belarusian HEIs signed Magna Charta Universitatum.

The new rules of procedures regulating HEI Council establishment  are approved by the Ministry of Education on July 18, 2011 do not assign them with decision-making powers on the issues determining HEI autonomy. The Council doesn’t have the right to elect and dismiss Rector, Vice-Rectors, Deans, approve and amend HEI Statute, approve new educational programs and study plans, to approve establishing of new and liquidation of old departments and research labs, to approve financial reports and doesn’t have a right to final expertise and award academic ranks and qualifications.

The new Educational Code and the system in general doesn’t promote fundamental values of European society: institutional autonomy and academic freedom. This continues to follow the traditional HEIs management style dated back to the USSR times using administratively regulated HE development and state control over its functioning.

Academic Freedom

The Bologna documents state that any European higher education reforms should be based on institutional autonomy and academic freedom principles. Countries that want to join in shall respect these values on which HEIs accountability to society is built.  The society, from its side, should take interest in HEIs policies development and application in respect to key values of academic freedom: freedom of thought, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of teaching, rights for association, etc. These rights are guaranteed by the Constitutions in many countries and are viewed that HEIs act in public interests. Belarusian law doesn’t guarantee any of these to HEIs faculty, staff and students. The law doesn’t protect their rights and doesn’t guarantee freedom of speech and opinion. The new Education Code didn’t include any of the academic freedom values at all. Since 2008, the advocacy organization monitoring ‘ban on profession’ issues noted that most socially active faculty and researchers have been ousted from the universities on political, religious and ideological grounds. Social sciences and humanities faculty were the first to experience such ‘ban’ as their academic profession became a subject to ideological intervention from the state. Now this practice is extended to the other academic professions. HEIs faculty must form patriotism and national self-awareness in students based on the state ideological policy in accordance with Article 18 of the Education Code. This affects all faculty irrespectively of their academic profession.

The HEIs and faculty duties and responsibilities to each other are set in the employment contracts and its addendums/amendments, which are regular in a conflict with academic freedom principles. Faculty choices of publishers are limited to the journals’ selection approved by HEIs and if published somewhere else the faculty may be punished. In addition to this, the universities own publications and announcements to made public and other announcements are subject to censorship by administration.

Faculty academic freedom in choice of teaching methodology is limited by the educational study program standards. Article 217 of the code defines that study program of particular discipline is legally binding and sets discipline’s aims and objectives, its content, number of hours taught per subject, recommends teaching methods, literature to be used and other educational means. All programs are approved by the Ministry of Education and are meant for use at any university. Faculty must follow Ministry’s teaching guidelines.

Faculty freedom of movement is not just limited by HEIs financial resources but in many cases by lengthy and frequently politically motivated bureaucratic procedures and administrative barriers. This relates to any travel undertaken by faculty. It mostly hit the faculty teaching at EHU located in Lithuania. They were asked to stop their cooperation with the university or be fired from home HEI.  Most of the faculty chose to continue teaching at EHU but in secret in spite of looming punishment.

In regards to students’ travel, they have to obtain permission to leave from the Minister in accordance with its guidelines #125 from December 27, 2005. Normally, any travel request or permission to leave requires lengthy bureaucratic approval procedure and regularly rejections or unexplained delays are politically motivated. Students have been taking risk to leave without any permission to participate in different events of their choice. For example, Ms. Tatian Shaputko was expelled from her university for participating in Eastern Partnership Civil Forum in November 2009 in spite of her outstanding academic results.

Article 52 of the Education Code allows faculty to form professional associations and other civil organizations if their activities do not breach the law. In reality, pro-government organizations are allowed to pursue their activities in HEIs while alternative ones are facing numerous barriers at registration stage and the members of non-registered NGOs may face criminal charges filed against them in accordance with Article 193.1 of Criminal Code. On the other hand, HEIs leadership forces faculty and staff to join pro-government organizations such as NPA Belarya Rus by what violate their rights for association.

In general, new Educational Code and the current HE system don’t promote fundamental values of Bologna: institutional autonomy and academic freedom. Belarus continues to follow the traditional HEIs management style dated back to the USSR times using administratively regulated HE development. .

Based on this, we can state that Belarusian Higher Education system doesn’t respect fundamental principles of Bologna and EHEA and this needs to be given primarily attention and concern. Unless Belarus adheres to these principles, the higher education development in country and its position in European educational environment remain questionable.

The measures to be taken to resolve this standstill must include:

• legal framework reform
• higher education administrative control elimination
• use of foreign expertise in higher education development.

2. Public responsibility for higher education

EHEA Ministers have twice - in 2001 and 2003 - stated that higher education is a public good and a public responsibility. Please describe how the public responsibility for higher education is organized and put in practice in your national higher education system. It is suggested that the description comprises a consideration of the role and responsibilities of various actors as well as a consideration of the main challenges in this area and your plans, priorities and timetable for meeting these challenges.                                                                                

Contradictory Magna Charter, excessive dependence on political trends and high bureaucracy of higher education management leads to HEIs constant decrease of their accountability to the society.

The Board of Trustees and/or similar governing bodies is the mechanism to represent public interests in higher education. The Education Code allows the Board of Trustees presence in HEIs but the newly adopted rules of procedures regulating the Board of Trustees establishment and approved by the Ministry of Education doesn’t assign any decision making power to them. The Board doesn’t have any influence on HEI development strategy as well as doesn’t have any power and rights in presenting and defending the rationale related to the labor market needs.  The Board of Trustees has a consultative and advisory role and their main task is to search for additional financial sources for HEIs needs in accordance with the rules of procedures.  The Ministry of Education and HEIs leaderships are convinced that students must pay for their education having in mind that it is an investment in human capital i.e. higher education but at the same time, they don’t allow employers and society to participate in higher education decision-making process.

The government understanding what quality of education is doesn’t relate to the need of educating a high quality specialists but rather their compatibility to educational standards developed and approved by the Ministry of Education without any input from and participation of society and businesses.

3. Cooperation among stakeholders and student participation

Within the EHEA, higher education policies are developed in partnership between public authorities, the higher education community and other stakeholders. Please provide a description of who you see as the main stakeholders in higher education in your country, how these stakeholders are involved in developing higher education at present and what you see as the main challenges in this area, including your plans, priorities and timetable for addressing the challenges. In view of the fundamental role of student participation, the description should be explicit on the role of students in higher education governance at both institutional and system level, including whether student representatives are elected by the student body and whether there is an independent, democratic and representative national student union open to all students.

Belarusian higher education is funded by multiple sources where the state contribution is constantly decreasing. It seems that it is a high time for HEIs seek cooperation with different societal players: government, businesses, civil society as well as develop strong partners network. On the other hand, it is difficult to establish effective partnerships with state being one of the main stakeholders and exercises its power.  The result of state dominant position is the approval of new Education Code. The Code doesn’t provide the framework for building social partnerships and defines the relationships between HEIs and employers in terms of ‘Client’ and ‘Executor’ relations where ‘client’ as well as the other stakeholders, excluding government, don’t participate in HEIs management and decision-making. The are considered as sponsors or donors without any influence on HEIs development strategy. There is no legal basis for establishing independent Board of Trustees and Endowment Funds.

Students and their parents don’t have any influence whatsoever either while they are the once who are main sponsors of HEIs. Formally, parents could be among Board of Trustees Members but the Board itself doesn’t have any decision-making role and powerful influence on HEIs mission and strategy, teaching methodology and program content, HEIs financing in comparison to European traditional HEIs structure and governance.  The number of parents represented on Board is not regulated.

The new rules of procedures for HEIs Advisory Board (Senate) establishment guarantees 25% of places to be reserved for students representatives but the Board doesn’t have any power thus making such representation ineffective. Students representation remains controversial in current situation as they are normally represented by the BNYU, students union and students’ council representatives that doesn’t guarantee students representation across the board. Besides, there is no guarantee that Board Members election will be conducted in accordance with democratic principles of transparency and fairness due to the complete political control by the HEIs leadership and government.

There is no visible students participation in HEIs self-governance. Current legislation doesn’t have any clause on students’ participation, rights and responsibilities. It only describes the disciplinary measures to be taken against students in violation of HEI’s norms and rules. The only recognition of students’ rights comes within HEIs internal rules and procedures allowing students to challenge the faculty decision during the study period. There are a few cases when this was exercised in past.   Students’ organizations rights are limited and their activities and management are controlled and regulated by HEIs ideology departments to monitor the adherence to state ideological policies. The most vivid example of students’ organizations control is that the only organization representing students is National Students Association, which is a part of Belarusian National Youth Union, pro-government youth organization. Starting from 2001, authorities have been closing independent youth organization whose mission and activities were different from the official line. This is symbolic that ESU, representing Belarus in European Students Association was closed in 2001 by court order. Fortunately, this organization is still active but continues its work underground. Members of non-registered independent organizations may face criminal charges for participating in such establishments in accordance with Article 193.1 of Criminal Code. EU recognizes such actions as a violation of rights for Association and views its full discharge as one of many conditions based on which the dialogue with Belarusian government can be resumed.

To conclude, the following actions must be taken:

• the legal framework on students’ participation in decision-making within the university should be developed;
• HEIs should have clear strategy on their involvement.
• develop strategy of stakeholders participation in higher education development;
• develop regulatory base for their participation;
• develop legal framework for active students’ participation.

CONCLUSION

The evaluation of Belarusian higher education policies, existing legal framework, institutional autonomy and academic freedom conditions allows us to conclude that without complex higher education reforms Belarus full membership in EHEA won’t be effective. We strongly believe that Belarus entrance to EHEA should be done in stages based on proposed ‘Road map for reforms” (see attached).

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