Uladzimir Dunaeu: Etatism is a flaw in our system

What the officials can no longer be silent about? Why are Turkmen keeping our system alive? How can we stop vicious circle of ignorance, when teachers with poor skills are producing their own copies?

The entrance to the universities is above to start; so EuroBelarus Information Service decided to discuss ridiculously low passing grades and paradoxes of Belarus’ educational system with Uladzimir Dunaeu, former vice-chancellor of European Humanities University, a member of the Public Bologna Committee, a professor of philosophy.

- What has changed since the latest entrance campaign?

- The crisis has only worsened, both in the system of high education and in the system of higher education. And what is particular and new in this situation is that the officials themselves are talking about the crisis and criticizing the system of control in educational system and education in Belarus in general.

The crisis is seen in a number of things, such as inefficient system of funding, in a research performed by the World Bank, last year’s failure of the entrance campaign.

This year entrance campaign demonstrates “realism”: if last year university entrants had to get 15 points at the General Test as the minimal entrance level (and one third of university entrants failed at that), this year the minimal entrance level is 5 points for language test and 7 points for math, which is ridiculous. It means that the quality of education in high school has tremendously decreased, while the situation with the higher education is a catastrophe.

- A year ago experts noted the following tendency: a lot of poor students entered not prestigious professions, such as pedagogy, which means that after graduating from the university they will continue the vicious circle and spread ignorance. What do you think should the Ministry of Education do in order to stop that?

- We are facing a very controversial situation there. On the one hand, a lot of people admit the presence of the vicious circle; but on the other hand, it is admitted that the system of pedagogic education itself is awful.

Thus, according to the research performed by the World Bank, we don’t need so many teachers; the state can’t fund the education system that we are having now, and even the Minister of Education is aware of that.

If we refer to the system of higher education, Belarus occupies 6^th place by number of students in the world; 85 per cent of young people are entrants of universities, whereas the general figure is only 73 per cent for other countries.

Thus, we are leading by number of students; but we lag behind by funding and quality of education.

In order to stay at the former level we need much bigger funding. In this situation it is hard to expect that the vicious circle will be stopped.

- We have universities everywhere – in Baranavichy, Mazyr… Is the trend to change names with the same content is already dying out or is only developing?

- It is not only developing; moreover, the new project of the Code of Education doesn’t provide for any other forms of higher education except for universities and academies, which means that either the existing institutions will be renamed or they will be closed.

There are no grounds to expect that something will be changed for the better; the very system of Belarusan education is archaic, and the Ministry of Education struggles to get rid of this archaism, of low quality and low prestige of education by renaming the institutions.

How can the state return the prestige of the higher education back into the society?

- The prestige of education is high; it is the prestige of specialists that is low. Social polls reveal that the population is satisfied both with the high and higher education; but it is dissatisfied with doctors, teachers, and managers. Here is the paradox: the education is good, but specialists are bad.

There are no simple solutions, especially with the political system that we have; etatism is a flaw in our system; i.e. the presence of constant and all-embracing control of educational system by the state, which doesn’t allow us to use even the resources that we have, not to say about some other sources.

And until the state stops interfering in the educational system there will be no change, especially when it comes to the quality of education. Education is supposed to correspond with the demands of the labour market, and communication between these two institutions is constantly being interrupted or distorted by the state; so there is no saying about the quality.

State education is concerned with funding; it attempts to find money anywhere, get them from Turkmen, who only decrease the quality of education, as the level of their high education is awful. Why should we accept them as they are after they destroyed their high and higher education and can’t reform it only because they bring additional money for the educational system?

- Today, in order to become an entrant to a number of professions, such as journalism or international relations, entrants have to get a recommendation of some ideologist from local authorities. In your opinion, how much is this conformism distorting the future Belarus’ elite by eliminating freethinking?

- I absolutely agree that this instruction destroys freethinking. There is no actual selection process; however, the entrant already gets the message to demonstrate his or her conformism, by this developing an awful culture of future specialists in such significant spheres as law or journalism. You won’t “be approved” without demonstrating hypocrisy and conformism. Of course, there is no sense in it from the professional perspective; but from the point of ideology it is one more way to abuse young people.

The flourishing corruption in Belarus’ educational system, faked doctor's degrees and neglected Bologna process will be discussed in the continuation of interview with professor Dunaeu soon on eurobelarus.info.