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Czech higher education still at a crossroads
A lack of university reform imperils the ability of the country to compete By Petr Mateju Nov. 18, 2004 Reforms to the system of higher education in Central and Eastern Europe display both common and unique features, with the commonality derived mostly from the similarity of tasks faced by the post-communist countries at the beginning of their transformation. One of these was the need to reform the "Soviet" or "communist" model of higher education and research. It has only now become obvious, however, that transforming the communist-type system of higher education into a modern one -- well integrated into democratic society and a knowledge-based market economy -- is a task far more difficult and demanding than was expected by educational policy makers, international experts and observers at the beginning of the post-communist transformation. There can be no doubts that Czech higher education has changed profoundly since 1989. Universities were granted almost full autonomy as early as 1990, and the principle of their self-government has not been challenged since. Universities used the newly acquired autonomy primarily for reforming curricula, expanding programs in the humanities and social sciences and -- of course -- for eliminating political criteria from admission policies for both faculty and students. On the other hand, particularly in the later stages of the transformation, the autonomy was often used to block profound reforms that would lead to a larger accountability of university managers for their budgets and strategic planning. Therefore, the structural change of our tertiary education was not as quick and profound as obtaining and mastering the freedom. There were two really significant structural changes in the Czech tertiary education system: decentralization, which was made possible by establishing regional universities, and diversification, mostly due to the growth of private colleges, gradually filling the gap in the offering of bachelor's degree programs. Only now have public universities begun to implement the two-tier (binary) system of tertiary education based on the division between undergraduate and graduate level, something strongly recommended by the Bologna declaration signed in 1999. Although in 1998 universities became "public legal entities" with extensive property rights, serious restrictions were imposed on the use of this property in generating revenue, especially through their participation in private ventures. This made it difficult to change multisource financing from only a catchword to real practice. Also, several attempts to expand multisource financing by introducing tuition fees and corresponding student-support schemes (loans, student allowances, etc.) have failed. Therefore, though Czech universities have received more formal autonomy and even extensive property rights, their financial dependence on the state has remained unchanged. The reliance on the state budget, which was coming under increasing pressure from other political priorities and the accumulated deficit, led to a severe financial crisis of public universities, which culminated in the fall of 2001 with strikes and protest meetings among faculty, staff and students. The government promised to solve the situation by a significant increase in public expenditures, but it failed to meet its promises. Therefore, similar protests took place again this spring with similar rather blurred outcomes. Though it's already clear that there won't be any marked change in the government's fiscal policy toward public universities in the foreseeable future, most of the rectors and high representatives of public universities support the government in rejecting deeper reform of tertiary education financing, which would allow universities to charge reasonable fees (be it upfront or deferred) and to fill stipend funds to be used to support needy students from low-income families. The resistance to implementing a new model of financing is absurd not only with respect to the deepening financial crisis of schools but also to the results of public opinion polls, which show that a majority of the Czech population, including students themselves, agree that a system of tuition fees and loans would enable more young people to obtain a university education. Although the number of students almost doubled between 1989 and 2004, the supply of educational opportunities has remained too low to meet the steeply rising demand for tertiary education. The chance of being admitted increased from 50 to 60 percent during the last five years, owing to the combined effect of a drop in the population of relevant age and the growing proportion of students admitted to shorter bachelor programs. Given the rapid growth in the number of secondary-school graduates and the steady accumulation of unsatisfied demand, the transition from secondary to tertiary education is still the most critical moment in an educational career. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) statistical yearbook, Education at a Glance, the Czech Republic still belongs to those OECD countries with the lowest enrollment rates to tertiary education. Access to higher education A limited number of opportunities at public universities has led to extremely tough competition for admittance, which makes the process socially more selective than in most advanced countries. After 40 years of feeding people's illusions about equal opportunities for education and of opening universities to children from working-class families, we have been confronted with the fact that social inequity in access to higher education was greater in socialist Czechoslovakia than in the so-called capitalist countries and that it has even grown since 1989. Though for decades high selectivity has been among the biggest problems facing the Czech university system, the government has not presented any consistent policy agenda to address it. Though about two-fifths of students would welcome loans provided under reasonable conditions, there is no system of loans or grants supported or at least coordinated by the government. To make things even worse, the most-recent changes in employment legislation worsened the situation for students on the labor market, making their short-term contracts far more complicated than before. Low enrollment and high inequality not only prompt an enormous waste of potential talent but also greatly undermine the competitiveness of the Czech economy, losing out particularly to countries that have reformed their universities and put them to the very center of the human-resources development and innovation process. We are still waiting for a government strong and brave enough to make this strategic move before we become an open-air museum in the heart of Europe. -- The author is the vice president for research at the Anglo-American College in Prague and chairs the department of social stratification at the Institute of Sociology at the Czech Academy of Sciences. In 2002 he established and currently chairs the Institute for Economic and Social Analysis, an independent think tank designed to promote reform processes and policies in East and Central European countries. |
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