The actual state of things in Belarus’ higher education (Round table with participants of the Bologna Committee), part I

The round table with representatives of the Public Bologna Committee dedicated to the actual state, problems, and directions of reforming higher education in Belarus.

What has the summer admission campaign to higher education establishments demonstrated, and what challenges is the higher education system facing today? What can and should be done by those who make decisions and by the public in order to develop this field of activity that is vital for the country? These and other questions were discussed by participants of the Public Bologna Committee - Vladimir Dounaev, Svetlana Matskevich, and Dmitry Gomenyuk. The round table was moderated by Andrei Yahorau.

Participants:

V.D. - Vladimir Dounaev, candidate of philosophical sciences, an independent expert.

S.M. - Svetlana Matskevich, candidate of pedagogical sciences, an expert of the Humanitarian Techniques Agency.

D.G. - Dmitry Gomenyuk, a student of the EHU baccalaureate program "International Law", director of the Students Initiatives Development Center.

Moderator:

A.Y. - Andrei Yahorau, master of political sciences, director of the Center for European Transformation.

A.Y. – The topic of our round table is the actual state of affairs in Belarus’ system of higher education. The first actual question is the admission campaign, which has almost finished yet, and the second essential question that needs to be discussed is the report of Minister of Education Sergei Maskevich, which was presented during the president’s reception on July, 24^th. The third and the last part includes the questions that have to do with the necessary reforms of higher education in connection with the Bologna Process and the plans of the Public Bologna Committee aimed at promoting reforms in Belarus. Maybe, there’s something else we have to discuss, what do you think?

V.D. – These topics will suffice. Each question can become a separate discussion.

1. The admission campaign and the actual state of affairs in system of higher education.

A.Y. – Right now in Belarus, the admission campaign to higher education institutions (HEIs) is going to end; it always becomes a significant event for enrollees and their parents and is also a certain test for the higher education system. It often reveals the actual trends and problems which are present in higher education today. In your estimation, what does this campaign show? What does it tell us about higher education today?

S.M. - I reckon that this - and in general - any admission campaign fixes more likely quantitative, rather than qualitative trends in education. If to look at the quantity indicators, it’s possible to see that the number of students is decreasing. And, basically, it could have been predicted based on the policy conducted by the government, namely – the reduction of the number of HEIs, the attempt to transfer students from the higher education system to the system of specialized secondary education and vocational technical training. It all has been declared by the authorities earlier. The results of this campaign will allow us to see whether they’ve succeeded in transferring a part of entrants to the lowest levels of professional education, but it’ll be possible to speak about it a tad later. Meanwhile, the fact that in the conditions of deficiency of entrants the offer of educational services exceeds the demand for these services is quite obvious in this admission campaign. In general, I treat very skeptically the cyclicism in the education system analysis, even though education is prone to seasonal fluctuations, a seasonal cycle, such as the admission campaign, the academic year, in August there’re statements of new purposes of education...

A.Y. – Harvesting; sowing...

S.M. – Yes, and it’s quite difficult to break this circle of cyclicism, to understand the essence and where all of us are heading in this educational system. It seems to me that there’s some wicked design - to enthrall everybody by a long procedure of admission, passing examinations and tests, so that nobody could even think and reflect upon the contents of this education, its real purposes. There’re some formal demands of the population for educational services - people want their children to receive higher education. But do they ask the questions like, “What kind of education do they want?”, “Does the quality of this education, which exists right now, correspond to this demand?”, “What is the qualitative structure of demand?” For today, proceeding from this admission campaign, from all cyclic actions in the educational sphere, it’s obviously impossible to find it out. I mean, there’s a need to carry out additional studies, sociological polls, etc., dedicated to this topic.

A.Y. – You’re saying that this cyclicism conceals something, as though something’s taking place behind the external façade in higher education. What can it possibly be?

V.D. – I’ would nevertheless disagree with this opinion because the cyclicism reflects people’s natural needs. It’s significant for them, and it’s to be considered. What we can conjecture here is another thing. To see prospects, to estimate the quality, to speak about future catastrophes or unusual successes, is one thing. It seems to me that there’s a rational and quite explainable behavior of a consumer who reacts to what’s offered to him. But if to look at what’s known to us - at a fragment of this admission campaign, at the way the consumer reacts to the attempts of modifying his/her behavior - then it’s necessary to say that the state’s failed to overcome the inertia of the system. Let's think, what was one of the main tasks? You, Svetlana, say - to redistribute streams. Let's see. This year, 92,000 places for the first course were declared. Last year – 105,000; and HEIs didn’t manage to fill them as there were fewer enrollees than needed. But last year there were about 15,000 less graduates from schools than this year. In 2012, 65,000 graduates from secondary schools apply for 92,000 places in HEIs. Well then, where should we find people for the rest of the places? It’s possible to assume that there’ll be Chinese, Turkmen, and other foreign students, but it won’t have much of an influence. We have just 10,000 foreign students. Even if the authorities raise this number up to 12-15,000, it won’t settle the matter.

D.G. - By the way, now these entrants from the friendly countries are allowed not to take tests.

A.Y. – It means they don’t take exams at all?

V.D. – Right now, the situation is the following – no matter who, no matter how, as it’s necessary just to fill the places created. It doesn’t mean it’s necessary to accept 92,000 students because otherwise the national economy will stifle without specialists. It’s the problem of the higher education system itself.

A.Y. – This quantity of students is the number of students needed for its survival?

V.D. – Yes, needed in order for that the higher education could exist and that the system could function. There’re tutors who are to be "loaded". Plus, there’re auxiliary services which participate in its work as well.

Generally speaking, the attempt to somehow "squeeze" our educational system during the election campaign appears to be absolutely hopeless. But for some reason it’s always like that – they usually start to "tighten" the educational system before any elections. As during this period it’s important not to have any social tensions, the attempts to somehow "tighten" the system bring no good results to the reformers. And for the system, they come to an end with the same outcome - stability. Nowadays, we do have this stability. And in general - how is it possible to transfer streams to basic, secondary, specialized secondary and vocational education if we catastrophically have no students? Here, it’s simple enough – there’re no enrollees at all! Places should be reduced twice so that to be able to force them to move somewhere. But nobody will dare do it now because this year is the year of parliamentary elections and nobody needs any social tensions. Nobody would start reducing the number of places this year.

A.Y. – Does it have to do only with some possible tensions among educators who shouldn’t be dismissed or, inter alia, with the fact that the authorities need an army of ideological workers during elections?

V.D. - Well, basically, there’re teachers of secondary schools who work at polling stations. They’re unskilled workers of the power; they do the work, while tutors of HEIs and students – hardly do...

S.M. - It seems to me, there’s not any special purpose to regulate the number of tutors.

V.D. – There could be such a task, but, I think, it’s economically unfeasible because our higher education system is developed absolutely disproportionately. It couldn’t be loaded by anything. And the dream that it can be loaded by either foreign students or the lifelong learning system, i.e. training and retraining, remains, most likely, unreal.

A.Y. – What about students – do they feel the superfluity of tutors and teachers?

V.D. – Let’s compare. The ratio between tutors and students in Belarus is one to ten! And it’s so according to the law! It’s written so in the Education Code. And now compare it to Lithuania. How d’you think, how many students should one teacher have there? Twenty!

S.M. – Here, it’s not a question of some concrete ratio. It’s more likely the result of techniques: there they’ve got one technique with an optimum proportion, and here we’ve got a different one.

V.D. – Of course, it’s a question of technique. Do you know how many times we’ve tried to change this technique? But it’s impossible to change it because it affects the number of tutors. This is where the whole social problem lies. For us, the higher education reform turns into a social problem. The Ministry of Economics wanted to carry out a higher education reform in 2001 - to change the ratio "tutor-student" as it’s the main economic indicator. At first, they wanted to increase the ratio up to 13 students per one tutor, then – up to 15 students. And the result? Nothing! Because 2001 was the year of presidential election.

A.Y. - An unsuccessful choice of a year.

V.D. - Yes. The Ministry of Economics launched this program, but it needed to reduce the number of tutors considerably, and all rectors howled at once, "It’s a social problem!"

S.M. - Because they don’t have a clue of how to implement this new parity, i.e. they simply don’t know how to make it.

V.D. - Yes, they don’t know! And they don’t need it either.

S.M. – That’s right. They try to solve all the problems while preserving the former system and to insert something new in the former system.

V.D. – I’d like to say one more thing. All attempts of the state to redirect students where it’s necessary, i.e. to technical and natural-science specialties have been unsuccessful. People didn’t want to study these specialties. And, on the other hand, the attempts to limit admission to such specialties as "economy" and "law", if to judge by the first results, have been unsuccessful, as well. The consumer’s appeared to be completely insensitive to the measures used by the state.

S.M. – Tell us what measures have been taken? The only thing I can recall is a psychological testing. But this officially fixed form solves nothing.

V.D. - A simple thing has been proposed - to increase the cost of education for legal and economic specialties. At the same time, the cost of education for technical specialties doesn’t decrease and the budgetary component doesn’t increase significantly. Here, if they’d made 80-90% of all places of technical or natural-science specialties free-of-charge, maybe, people would’ve gone there. They keep the prices on education for technical specialties, but increase those for "economy" and "law" and they hope there’ll be some overflow of students. But according to the available data, there’re no overflows. People prefer to overpay.

S.M. – It means, there’re new tasks on modernization, but these tasks are being solved by the same standard methods of the planned economy. It’s impossible to regulate the system with the help of market and similar mechanisms - the price policy, for example.

A.Y. – You were saying that we know something about higher education and something don’t. What’s this that we don’t know about higher education but would like to find out? For instance, the same Public Bologna Committee or independent experts - what do they need to know about higher education now, what are the things that we can’t know thanks to the admission campaign or other external signs? What must be understood in order to start future reforms?

V.D. - Firstly, we need adequate statistics, but there is no any. It’s absolutely simple – everyone who has to do with educational statistics does know that we don’t have it. Look, the organs of public health services publish detailed researches and statistical data in the Internet; the economy bodies - all is reflected in statistics, as well. The Ministry of Statistics publishes it all. The Ministry of Education publishes nothing. Even the statistics, which they do have, can be found exclusively in the library. They even don’t sell their editions with statistical data at all. I tried to buy it once, but they told me, "No! How’s it possible?"

A.Y. - Statistics is a set of data with the help of which we can find out something. And what’s it that we’d like to know?

S.M. - Let's understand who should know something and who will do something with this system. At least, these are the people who make decisions concerning education - officials of the Ministry of Education, the Minister of Education who declares something about the development of this system. They ought to know something. But, I think, they don’t know even today where actually it’s necessary to move. And they try to be guided by different samples - we take the Russian model and we’re guided by it, or we take the European model and we’re guided by it. But even if we take this or that model, it’s necessary to understand it. To learn its principles, the way it functions, because the educational system isn’t as simple as it seems. And this is what they can’t fathom.

V.D. - Sorry, but who’s choosing the samples now?

S.M. – There are not samples that are being chosen, there is an ideological orientation, coming from the Presidential Administration, and being implemented. That’s why there can’t be any reforms at all.

A.Y. – It means they need no objective knowledge about their own education system?

S.M. – They’ve got to react to natural trends.

V.D. – They’re not interested in this knowledge. Perhaps, the basic problem, which exists in the educational system, is the question of quality. As for the price - then it’s also interesting and it’s shrouded in mystery, why the price of preparation of one student in a state-run higher education establishment financed from the country’s budget is twice as high as in a private one? Why’s it so? How does it happen? And it’s a question of the efficiency of financing education, and a very interesting question. In general, we want to know about the policy of higher education. And the policy – what’s that? It’s the availability, price, and quality. Here are the three indicators which create an “iron triangle” in any educational policy.

A.Y. – As for the price and quality – somehow, little can we say about this.

V.D. – As for the availability – we don’t know all about it either. We don’t know the degree of availability of our higher education.

A.Y. - Presumably, we, as independent experts, can’t receive this knowledge. But it’s not present in the educational system, i.e. those who rule can’t receive it either.

V.D. – That’s right! Because when we speak about the problem of quality, then what’s "quality" for the Ministry of Education? It’s conformity to the standards approved by the Ministry itself. And consequently – they never want to know anything about the things that are beyond this conformity.

S.M. – The very way of receiving the information about the educational system plays its role. It’s received from educational institutions which submit their information in the way so that to justify the Ministry’s expectations.

V.D. - Quite right!

S.M. - And even if people somewhere out there, from below, know that something goes wrong, this information is just not submitted. On the other hand, they can’t and aren’t authorized to solve independently the problems they’ve got below, on the ground, at a local level. There’s no political will either.

V.D. – They’re not authorized – that’s right. But there’s a question - how to understand the current state of the quality of our education? We’ve only discussed its state. We say, "The quality is low", and they say, "We have such an impression that it’s high". Who’s right? How can you prove it? Both their and our proofs are, in general, equally poor. They say, "Well, our students win international Olympiads? They do! Our students go abroad and they adapt there somehow – they find places to study and to work; they don’t beg alms in the underground? It means our quality is quite ok". And we live with a very indistinct, unclear understanding of what the quality of Belarusan education is. And the authorities don’t want anyone to measure this quality by any intersubjective criteria.

S.M. - But why? After all, it’s clear that in the course of the quality assessment there’ll be certain employers participating in it.

V.D. It is clear. How’re they going to participate? Here, again, under the law - the employer no way participates in the management of the educational process. There’re indirect attempts to take part in it. But who’s allowed to participate in it? Is it a real employer? No. These are ministries. The Ministry of Education requests something from the Ministry of Trade, but not from a real employer. This is the way it goes. It’s clear we’ve got a problem; there’s a contradiction between the bureaucratic evaluation of the quality and the real labor market. Belarus differs from the other countries of the Eastern Partnership ‘cause here the dissatisfaction of heads of enterprises with the quality of preparation of experts is growing way too fast. In Belarus, the speed of this increasing is higher than that in any other country. And do you think the Ministry of Education isn’t aware of that? It is. But who solves such problems in the country? The president! One has to knock on his door and tell him, "We don’t have good programmers enough. We can’t find 200 high-class programmers for the High Technologies Park". - "Well, but we gave diplomas to 20,000 programmers. What, you can’t find 200?" - "They’re bad!" - "So, what shall we do?" - "Well, Comrade President, do organize preparation of programmers".

 Pass to the part II | Pass to the part III