Uladzimir Dunaeu: Will the Ministry of Information get the European point?

Visitors from the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory made a quiet and subtle trip to Belarus.

“Magna Charta Universitatum” spell isn’t working in Belarus

First visit of the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory delegation to the country where academic freedoms are confined was very bright.

The visit wasn’t promoted and happened within narrow circle of specialists in the sphere of education, i.e. officials from the Ministry of Education and the National Institute for the Higher Education. It was in the National Institute for the Higher Education where the presentation of major provisions of “Magna Charta Universitatum” took place on November 3.

European scientists talked about observance of principles of independent teaching, learning, and research in universities. But how our rigid system of higher education is supposed to follow it?

A correspondent of “EuroBelarus” Information Service talked about it with Uladzimir Dunaeu, professor of philosophy, a former Vice Rector of the EHU, the member of the public Bologna committee.

- Why did the meeting happen without broad promotion, without participation of university rectors and independent experts? Was it made on purpose, to smooth sharp angles?

- This has already become a bad tradition: all meetings with representatives of European organizations are planned in a small circle without broad promotion under the excuse that they are organized for some “competent” participants.

Absence of the press is very sad, too.

The organizers of the meeting – “Office for a democratic Belarus” – claim they have announced the meeting at their webpage, but I think few people saw that.

- National Institute for the Higher Education was a partner in organizing the meeting. Do European experts who are familiar with authoritarianism in Belarus really not understand that it is not the real situation in education they see? And if they are pretending to be so naïve, then why?

- First, the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory is a certain declaration universities sign. By signing it, they commit themselves to follow fundamental imperatives of academic life, fundamental values, such as academic freedom and university autonomy.

Belarus is not among the signers of the Charter; but Turkmen universities are. No comments are required, I guess.

Today the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory is aiming at spreading the number of the universities cooperating with it. It organizes monitoring, discussions with universities, trying to help cultivate academic values, but at the same time uses quite flexible system where anyone can sign it, and it is up to a university that signed it whether to fulfill the obligations or not.

When the Observatory invites a university to sign the Charta, they don’t organize monitoring or research on how this university corresponds to the requirements; the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory is not an inspector.

And universities that declare the required values should treat it responsibly. In the end, this is a voluntary union of those who share these values, not those who pretend to share them and in reality ignore them. But it only harms the university, as these values guarantee successful functioning of a university both as an educational institution and as a research center as well as an institution that makes significant contribution to the society.

We might be skeptical and doubtful about this principle now, but we should understand that no Magna Charta Universitatum or its Observatory or any other organization from without can make us adhere to really fundamental values if we not aim at that ourselves.

- Is there any sense in the visits of such delegations if they are isolated from independent experts from the sphere of education? As far as I know, the members of the Public Bologna Committee weren’t invited to the meeting, too.

- No, we weren’t invited. And it were not only experts in the delegation, but the leaders of the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory! The President of the Observatory Council Sibolt Noorda, General Secretary David Lock, two members of the Observatory Council – people who are very important in the system of higher education in Europe. But it was “Office for a democratic Belarus” together with the National Institute for the Higher Education who prepared this meeting, not them.

It seems that if the Observatory was somehow involved in preparation of this visit they might have thought about inviting someone else to this meeting; there was no secrecy there.

Nevertheless, I had all the freedom at the meeting – I asked questions and gave comments; the atmosphere wasn’t hostile.

What sense do these meetings have? Well, to reveal and make available and understandable the aims and goals of this organization and the importance of the values it supports. Moreover, the presentation of the guests wasn’t some kind of advertisement; there were serious theoretical reports on how autonomy and integration correlate.

This question is indeed topical for Belarus, and it is important whether the Ministry of Education will hear the European messages about new ways of autonomy and university’s responsibility before society combination or not.

The way autonomy is understood now is a serious challenge for us. It is comprehensive understanding of who are the direct participants of the university self-government, the so-called stakeholders who now actively participate in university’s management.

- Can we talk about the results that the visit of the delegation brought?

- If we’ll take a look at the report published by the organizers we’ll see that it ends with a statement that all participants of the meeting agreed to admit the importance of academic freedoms and university autonomy.

I don’t know whether it is so as no resolution was made. But Belarus signs all kind of resolutions and never adheres to them. For instance, according to the Bologna Committee, the autonomy of Belarusan universities is very low: from 10 to 26 per cent.

As to the academic freedoms, the illustration is the fact that we have university rectors who are prohibited to entry the EU because of the repressions against students and teachers. We know lots of examples when academic freedoms were limited – from the level of normative acts to political stereotypes.

For me one of the most symbolic and typical moments of the last meeting with the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory was my conversation with the first pro-rector of the BSU Zhuraukou. I asked him whether the norm of having 25 per cent of students in the university council is realized. His answer was brilliant: “as it should be, about 30 per cent!”

But if we take a look at the university’s webpage, the university council doesn’t even have the required 10 per cent, which proves that for the BSU management neither the council nor its membership make no sense; our councils have no rights. For me this example demonstrates how our country treats fundamental academic freedoms. Even in such quite successful university as the BSU…

The Bologna Committee decided to appeal to the General Prosecutor’s Office asking to examine how Belarusan universities fulfill the norms of law when it comes to the membership of the councils. It was done on November 12.

- We will follow your experiment with great attention. Can you surmise what the answer of the General Prosecutor’s Office will be?

- Not only the answer is interesting; we should make the fact of such appeal as public as we can. It shouldn’t be hidden from the society. We have no other instrument now; so let it be the first step on the way to academic values: improve the situation at least in the councils, do what the law prescribes!