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

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

3. Reforms of higher education and the activity of the Public Bologna Committee 

А.Y. – The things Svetlana says in connection with the strategy of the Public Bologna Committee are quite interesting. What would you like to do with Belarusan education? Building this public focus of management, where are you heading? Here, Svetlana sees some definite moments of what it must look like...

V.D. – As for the activity of the Public Bologna Committee, it’s necessary to take into account the fact that there’re actually ten parameters with the help of which we evaluate or we’re being evaluated from the point of view of our conformity to the Bologna Process. And, probably, our task is to suggest some models of transformation, reforms in connection with these parameters. To say that we’d like to change the educational system is way too wide. If to be more specific, there’re tasks that have to do with the architecture of education. Of course, they’ve got to be filled with some substantial meaning, but it’s clear that a formal scheme doesn’t have this substantial meaning and it’s clear that we can’t profess to know how to make our education perfect. But we do know what’s to be done in order to let us enter this all-European process, at least. What we should do isn’t only architectural exercises, not only techniques, but first of all - the values which our educational system should correspond to. If we don’t correspond to these values, then no matter what we do, we’ll remain within the scope of the same authoritarian model and all is going to be futile. We mainly discuss values, not techniques. And the question of values is a hopeless question ‘cause if you don’t accept these values, I won’t be able to prove to you that you should believe and share my values if you’ve got other values. Now the problem of Belarusan higher education is a conflict of European and Belarusan values. It’s necessary to admit that the values which we live with right now aren’t European. And then – either we shouldn’t go there where there’re some other values, or we should change something in our life and, thus, reconstruct our educational system. All the rest - architecture, recognition of diplomas - it all will come; it’s secondary.

А.Y. – I’ve got an example concerning the problems of values. I’ve visited a conference in Nizhny Novgorod where Russian experts and experts from the post-Soviet countries were discussing the design of the future Eurasian Union. Inter alia, they spoke about the necessity to create a Eurasian space of education with its own values. Perhaps, this is how it makes sense to solve the conflict of values?

V.D. – You’re welcome! We can also create a united space with North Korea! And we’ll look there the most liberal. I’m not kidding. It’s also good to know what kind of values are these - Eurasian or Russian ones. Recently, there have been some studies concerning the fact of whether there’s a consensus when it comes to the Russian values; it’s turned out there is one. And the Russian value understood by everybody as a universal one is oil and gas. You see what’s going on? What else? There’re no more values that could unite this space.

А.Y. - If right now the main thing is not the problems which have to do with techniques, but the conflict of values, then what does it mean for the Public Bologna Committee and its further activity? How’re you going to work with that?

S.M. - It means, at least, that if there’s a conflict of values, then it should be fixed and demonstrated publicly. It can only be demonstrated in the system of dialogue, discussion. Unfortunately, we can see the following - the conflict does exist and we realize it, but it’s not so clear if the second party realizes it and what it thinks of this conflict. I’ve got an impression that there’s some opposition of the Public Bologna Committee and the persons making decisions in the field of education and that they don’t realize there’s this conflict. And it’s a huge problem - how to bring this conflict to the format of discussion, dialogue, from the format of such a populist, accusatory attitude. It’s also a question of admission. In order to enter the dialogue, they have to admit we exist. We’re the Public Bologna Committee, but the second party pretends we don’t exist.

V.D. - Well, right now it’s already difficult for them to pretend we don’t exist as after what happened with the National Report...

S.M. - Purely strategically and tactically, we’ve temporarily won in this situation. I underline - temporarily. Any victory can’t last forever; it’s necessary to keep winning.

V.D. - They’ve not admitted that we’re a participant of this dialogue; they’ve just admitted there’s a conflict of values ‘cause if not to admit it, all the rest will be reduced to subjects, terms of education, i.e. avoiding of the discussion of real problems, an attempt to hide the existing problems in the smoke screen. Well, good, they’ve admitted there’s a conflict of values, and what’s next? "We’ll remain with our own values; that’s why we need no Bologna Process?” - this is an answer as well. Or, "We admit there’s a conflict of values; we’ll do our best to solve it", is another answer. Which one will they choose? There’s also one more variant of the answer, "We’ll not admit anything; we’ll do nothing at all. May be, the problem will straighten itself out".

S.M. – In order to reach the level of dialogue, it’s necessary to find something that unites us. And this is what none of the parties can reach. What makes us start a dialogue with each other? What? Belarus. Responsibility for future generations. No matter how pretentious it may sound.

V.D. – I’d say that the most unproductive thing for us is to try to escape to metaphysics. I understand that in this conflict of values and the situation description everyone has his/her own visions, ideals, and it’s very important. It’s possible to speak as a whole of how Belarus’ educational system looks like from the point of view of such high criteria, but our task is extremely concrete - what we can do. Not to try to describe it in such abstract concepts, but to reduce to concrete indicators with the help of which our discussion can go. Our opinions can coincide in the general assessments of higher education with our opponents, but we can disagree in the concrete strategy, or vice versa. Herewith, we speak not about abstract assessments, but about concrete ones. Actually, we’re speaking about values, but values have obvious empirical indicators.

А.Y. – You’ve mentioned here the monitoring conducted by the Public Bologna Committee. Could you, please, tell us more about it?

D.G. – There’s been a need to carry out a monitoring of infringements of academic freedoms for a long time. During the preparation of the report, it became clear that there wasn’t enough empirical material which it would be possible to refer to and say that there was a tendency or was it a single case, could the fact be proved or not. The task is to receive an objective picture of the situation with infringements of academic freedoms.

А.Y. - What exactly does this monitoring include?

D.G. - As a whole, we’re based on the methodology of the international organization Scholars at Risk and, according to this methodology, there’re certain sets of questions, which concern academic freedoms. For example, freedom of movement, or freedom of expression of personal opinion, or freedom from prosecution. The methodology is based on case study, i.e. we study concrete cases. The monitoring of changes of the legislation isn’t yet in our competence; most likely, there’ll be a separate group which will be engaged in the legislation monitoring. We study concrete cases when there’s forced labor of students or compulsion to participate in actions out of the curriculum, or intervention in internal affairs of a university from state bodies. Thus, it becomes clear, for example, whether the tendency to force students to vote early is a general phenomenon or just a single case with a concrete dean supporting a certain party.

А.Y. – You mean that with the help of the monitoring you fix the condition, collect arguments?

V.D. – I’d say it in another way. Dmitry has already underlined it. From the very beginning, we said that we don’t know our educational system. We don’t know ‘cause there’re no authentic and statistical data. It’s not that they’re hidden from us – it’s just that nobody collects these data. By means of this monitoring, we have to fill now this shortage of information about the educational system. Of course, we begin with the things which can’t get in any statistics, i.e. infringements of academic rights. It’s just the reason why Belarus hasn’t been acceded to the Bologna Process; it was called the basic cause of refusal. Therefore, we deal with the basic cause of refusal - the things which characterize our educational system as "inappropriate to the criteria" more than other drawbacks. Certainly, it’s only a beginning. We’d like to widen the monitoring to research of the whole state of the educational system and, if it’s reformed, it’ll be a monitoring of the changes which will start to take place.

А.Y. – You mean, you need this monitoring today in connection with the decision of the Secretariat of the Bologna Process? You look at these criteria and try to check whether they’re correct? You try either to deflate, or to confirm the suspicions of the Secretariat?

V.D. - Not only. When we were preparing our Alternative Report to the PBC, we faced the lack of statistics. We can’t say how many students are expelled ‘cause such statistics doesn’t exist. If there’re some figures, they’re often inexact, inconsistent, etc. We just can’t say whether we deal with the real problem of students expelled on political grounds or whether it’s a natural process of expelling students for their poor academic progress. In Belarus, there’s never been a professional examination of such events until now. Today, we can close the gap, and it’s very good. Still, this monitoring has another very important task, as well. Now, we can talk about a concrete HEI and about the state of what is called “academic freedoms” and “university autonomy” in a concrete HEI. They’re all different. The authorities would prefer to present the situation not on a case-by-case basis, i.e. all are bad or all are good. Our task is to have in each HEI a monitoring group both among students and among tutors, and to make all facts public.

It already means that HEIs can compare each other and their degree of infringements of academic freedoms. There’s also another problem raised by Olga Stuzhinskaya – what to do with the rectors included in the ban list by the EU. It’s impossible to doom people to a lifelong ban to enter the EU, really. It’s necessary to decide whether to extend this list or to reduce it. Perhaps, such measures aren’t necessary at all. It’ll be possible to say that here in this HEI there’s some progress and in this one – there isn’t any. It’s clear that there’s a general context. But on the general background there’re HEIs in which there’re different degrees of infringements of rights of students and tutors.

А.Y. – Alright, and the last question. What plans, except for the monitoring, does the Public Bologna Committee have? What’re you going to do during the following three months, six months, three years?

S.M. – We’ve got to somehow fix the success which was purely tactical. How to fix this success? By perfecting ourselves. I think that the Public Bologna Committee itself should obtain some new knowledge - not only the knowledge which we receive with the help of studies carried out by the monitoring, but also conceptual knowledge, knowledge of European models, and this is the task we face. If our task is to come closer to the Bologna Process, it’s clear that if the dialogue process goes adequately, we’ll have to take responsibility for the participation in this modernization. To participate in this modernization, we should be professionals in this sphere, at least. Therefore, first of all, we set this task for ourselves. And the second obvious task is to prepare for the future possible dialogue which can take place. This preparation can be built in various ways from purely tactical and strategic points of view.

D.G. – I’d like to add the following - it seems to me that one of our basic tasks is subjectification. To make the Public Bologna Committee a subject. According to the same Minister of Education, "Well, there’s a small group of marginal experts who try to present their own report". We need to reach such a level so that we could be really perceived as: "Well, good, let's try to talk with them". It’s clear that it’ll never be said publicly, but there’ll be an understanding that there’re those whom it’s necessary to consider, and such an understanding should appear.

S.M. – There’s such a task – to form the public focus of management in the educational system.

V.D. - Absolutely. That’s right, and it’s a common task. One of the tasks of the Public Bologna Committee, which is already being implemented, is the preparation of the so-called "White Book of Reforms". It’s an attempt to collect local experts and experts from neighboring countries, who have cases of successful reforms of higher education, in order to prepare a program of reforming higher education in Belarus. Here, of course, we don’t just expect a dialogue, but we do hope to launch a wide discussion, to provoke a dialogue, and actually to get representatives of the state included in this dialogue.

But the thing is that even if we together with the state experts develop such a program, it would change nothing, as a matter of fact, in our system of higher education. Because the main defect in our system of higher education is the absence of this public inclusion. And while the system is bureaucratic and centralized, no matter what good ideas we might propose, it will remain vicious in its basis. The task of the Public Bologna Committee is just to involve in this dialogue the social partners of higher education, who aren’t a part of this process yet. After all, the Belarusan system assumes that these social partners should take responsibility for higher education because they pay for it. Two thirds of students pay for their education. And today the state’s actually usurped the management functions, being only one of social partners. Other social partners - parents who pay; businesses which are future employers and which are interested in receiving what they really need, - should join this process. And the task of the Public Bologna Committee is to make this process inclusive for social partners. The task of advocacy of their interests, I think, is the main task.

А.Y. - Thank you for the discussion. 

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