University policy and coordination systems between governments and universities: The experience of the Catalan university system

Abstract

The co‐ordination, control and financing mechanisms for higher education institutions have been the subject of ongoing political analysis and technical debate within university systems over recent years. The interrelationships between governments (as the ones in charge of university policy), universities and society have in recent years undergone a restatement process, due principally to the widespread changes that have occurred in the higher education environment. In this context, the university system of Catalonia (Spain's most advanced and dynamic autonomous region) has, since 1997, been undergoing a new co‐ordination experience between the government and universities centred around the programme‐based contract formula, which has opened the way to a new system of financing and control of academic outputs for universities. The object of this paper is to critically analyse this experience (completely new to the Spanish university scene) in order to draw conclusions from the debate in progress on higher education co‐ordination, financing and university autonomy.     

HUNGARIAN ACADEMIC CO‐OPERATION WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE UNITED STATES

Academic co‐operation between higher education institutions in Hungary and those of western Europe, on the one hand, and those of the United States of America, on the other, are compared. Hungarian co‐operation with western European higher education, particularly the European Union countries, has been far more developed than that with the United States. The greater success and scope of co‐operation with western European higher education institutions is attributed to the comprehensiveness of the TEMPUS Programme of the European Union countries and its careful and well‐planned responses to the problems of the central and eastern European region. However, Hungarian higher education could gain a great deal from more intensive co‐operation with American higher education. Efforts should be made to encourage such co‐operation including the greater involvement of American higher education institutions in TEMPUS projects.     

HIGHER EDUCATION IN LATVIA

This report considers ways in which the Republic of Latvia and other developing countries can evaluate the situations in which they find themselves and then act to obtain the greatest benefit from the development of higher education, science, and research. For fifty years higher education, science, and research in Latvia were separated from their equivalents in western countries. In addition in Latvia higher education was isolated from industry as well as from science and research. Now the reform of higher education, science, and research must be given a legislative basis. As Latvia would like to join the European Union, it should base its regulations concerning higher education, science, and research on those of the European Union. The necessary legislation must provide possibilities and mechanisms for the co‐ordination of the interests of the whole society and the interests of the academic community     

Globalisation,New Managerialism,Academic Capitalism and Entrepreneurialism in Universities: Is the local dimension still important?

The paper examines the importance of global and local factors in the current development of universities in Western countries. Globalisation is a fashionable theoretical stance but care needs to be taken in applying it to education, not least because social theorists cannot agree on definitions and implications. Three concepts dealing with recent changes to universities--new managerialism, academic capitalism and entrepreneurial universities--are examined for their usefulness in explaining what is happening to universities in Europe and North America. Following a critical analysis of the theoretical and empirical basis of Slaughter & Leslie's 'Academic Capitalism' and Clark's 'Creating Entrepreneurial Universities', it is suggested that, in searching for similarities and convergence in universities in different countries, more localised factors affecting higher education institutions may be under-emphasised. Furthermore, some of the data used in the comparative case-studies of universities analysed in the paper do not provide methodologically robust evidence to support all of the claims being made. It is suggested that in future comparative work on trends in higher education, more attention should be paid both to methodological matters and to the local-global axis.     

THE EXPANSION OF EDUCATION IN EASTERN EUROPE: A REGIONAL VIEW

The higher education systems in the countries of eastern and central Europe are still in a period of stagnation. A period of rapid growth is expected, similar to that of the 1960's in the western part of Europe, to begin around the turn of the millenium. Because of the similarities of its middle classes, Subregion A (territories with traditional state education) might adopt a massification scenario even in the face of financial restrictions. The higher education of Subregion D (territories with non‐state education) might follow an élitist scenario in the course of higher education development according to which the autonomy of institutions and the privatization of systems would become major political issues.     

The Dynamics of Interaction During Post‐lesson Conferences and the Development of Professional Activity: Study of a pre‐service physical education teacher and her co‐operating teacher

The purpose of this study was to characterise the development of a preservice physical education teacher's professional activity over the course of training interactions with her co‐operating teacher. The student teacher's professional development was studied using a hermeneutic and inductive approach based on the analysis of data from observation and self‐confrontation interviews. The results showed that the preservice teacher's conceptions regarding her teaching developed despite communication difficulties with her co‐operating teacher and that she constructed new knowledge—at times without her co‐operating teacher's awareness—even when she disagreed with him. However, the student teacher's classroom activity did not always change as a result of this new knowledge. The self‐confrontation interviews revealed her construction of knowledge, as well as the reasons for disagreement and her resistance to changing her classroom action.     

States,Markets and University Funding: New paradigms for the reform of higher education in Europe

The construct of the market is an interesting new element in the discourse on higher education in Europe. It has generated serious initiatives in deregulating higher education, in developing performance-based models of resource allocation, in fostering inter-institutional competition and efficient management structures, and even in considering the 'privatisation' of higher education. These developments affect particularly the financing of higher education, where new models of resource generation and allocation, institutional steering and controlling, and accountability are being explored. Within this context, and with a view towards the future of higher education in Europe, four issues are being examined in more detail: formula funding, the mobilisation of external resources, the introduction of tuition fees, and the creation of private institutions of higher education.     

From state to market coordination: the Chilean case

Chile's higher education system has moved a long way from state and professional towards market coordination. Presently, market oriented policies predominate across the system, based on a loosely regulated private provision of higher education and the use of a set of “para market” mechanisms designed to enhance competition between state supported universities. The effects of these policies on the number and differentiation of higher education institutions, on enrollment, on the evolution of professional careers and academic degree programs, and particularly on the funding of the higher education system are here analyzed. A balance is drawn, specifically with respect to the nature and quality of private institutions and their public regulation, and to the competition for funding between state supported universities.     

DEVELOPMENT AND DIVERSIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS OF FRENCH UNIVERSITIES

With special reference to the Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse, the authors trace the development of the French universities from the élitist Napoleonic institutions that they still were in the early 1960's to the mass, diversified institutions of today. They stress the importance of the events of 1968 as a major turning point which had a particularly strong impact because they occurred during a period of prosperity. Thus the wide‐scale expansion, democratization, diversification, and massification which occurred led to a positive reaction to the call for increased vocationalization and co‐operation with industry which characterized the lean years that followed. Other stimuli for change and adaptation have been modifications in the legal structure of higher education, the need to increase offerings in continuing education, policies favouring decentralization and regionalization, and the influence of European Union higher education policies. The need to provide high quality higher education in a number of areas to a very large proportion of the age cohort is understood to be a social and economic necessity. The evolution of French higher education since 1968 could offer lessons and examples to the higher education systems of eastern and central Europe in their efforts to cope with transition. The role of universities in the modern world has been greatly enhanced. Important changes have occurred in French higher education over the past twenty‐five years, the resultpartly of the adoption of new laws, of social evolution, of economic needs and challenges, and of individual initiatives undertaken and voluntary policies adopted by universities.     

Prague as the centre of Russian educational emigration: Czechoslovakia’s educational policy for Russian emigrants (1918–1938)

This article looks at the role played by the Czechoslovakian Republic in the establishment and maintenance of the “Russian education system in exile” in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. No other country supported the educational activities of the Russian emigrants as generously as Czechoslovakia. Thanks to this extensive and targeted support, a well‐developed “Russian education system” came into being in Czechoslovakia, and Prague became the centre of Russian educational emigration in Europe. Czechoslovakia’s support for the Russian emigrants had not only humanitarian reasons, but was to a large extent motivated by political and economic interests.     

WASC ‐ POLISH INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Recent developments in higher education have their effect on planning and administration models of higher education institutions. In this context different computer‐operated models for planning and management have been developed. We give below an example of one such model, the Multiaccessible Subscriber's Numerical System, which has been developed at the Technical University of Wroclaw, Poland. This system, which is already partly in operation, can be compared with such models as CAMPUS (Comprehensive Analytical Methods of Planning in University Systems) operating in Canada and the United States, or the one developed in the Federal Republic of Germany by HIS (Hochschul‐Informations‐System). The information received from the Institute of Organization and Management of the Technical University of Wroclaw, on which the article below is based, underlines the need for international co‐operation in this field.     

Funding and the attainment of transformation goals in South Africa’s higher education

The link between the funding of higher education and the attainment of higher education transformation goals in South Africa, especially access by students from previously under‐represented communities, is the main focus of this paper. Specifically, the paper examines three questions: (a) How does public funding of higher education encourage (or discourage) the attainment of higher education transformation goals in South Africa? (b) What challenges do frequent tuition fee increases pose to the attainment of higher education transformation goals? (c) How can South Africa’s higher education be made affordable for indigent (mostly black) students? The paper concludes that although South Africa’s higher education funding formula is generally geared towards attaining the goals of transformation, several of its aspects are inimical to the achievement of these goals. Further, declining public funding of higher education and frequent tuition fee increases by public universities vis‐à‐vis higher education’s natural inclination to reproduce, and even to exacerbate, existing social disparities and inequalities do not bode well for the attainment of transformation in South Africa’s higher education. This is aggravated by existing high levels of poverty and inequality mostly affecting the majority of the communities that were marginalised during apartheid.     

我国高校教学与科研失衡原因及协调对策

目前,我国研究型高校和教学型高校中普遍存在着教学与科研两极分化的失衡现象。在研究型大学中,“重科研、轻教学”的局面比较严重,而在教学型高校中,“重教学、轻科研”又比较突出。本文从政府投资政策、高等教育经费体制、评价与考核机制、高校自身发展定位、效益待遇回报和教师能力差异六个方面分析了教学与科研失衡现象的原因,然后基于创新教育提出了教学科研协调发展的途径,包括强化创新意识;科学定位,因地制宜,开展特色研究;建立教学与科研协调发展的激励机制;建立教学科研为一体的双效考核体系;创新教学与科研管理体制与运行机制及改革传统的师资队伍建设和使用模式。     

Education and school‐to‐work transitions in post‐communist Poland∗

Abstract

Unemployment in Poland rose throughout 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993 but the proportion of school‐leavers among the unemployed peaked in 1990. Unlike in most western market economies, the best‐ educated young people in Poland did not prove the least vulnerable to unemployment. This paper uses evidence from studies of young people in Gdansk, Katowice and Suwalki to argue that one reason why young people from professional and vocational secondary schools have not borne a heavier share of Poland's unemployment since 1990 has been the flexibility and responsiveness of these schools to Poland's new labour market conditions. Since the reforms many of these schools have contracted drastically. Some have closed. But others have thrived The latter have often benefited from favourable local labour market conditions, but their success has usually been at least equally due to their own resourcefulness in introducing new courses which teach skills that are in demand, and securing various kinds of sponsorship from employers. Three reasons are offered to explain the responsiveness of education in Poland to the changing labour market conditions: general support for ‘the reforms’, the schools’ experience of making informal deals with employers under communism, and the post‐communist authorities’ willingness to force unsuccessful schools to close and to see teachers made redundant.

     

Student Involvement in University Life — Beyond Political Activism and University Governance: a view from Central and Eastern Europe

Since the 1980s and early 1990s, much attention has focused on the position of students as stakeholders in the process of higher education. The importance of student evaluation is now widely recognised; in many countries, the move toward fee‐based funding has increased the power of students as ‘consumers’ of their education. At the same time, it is often asserted that students are reluctant to participate in university life, concerned primarily (sometimes exclusively) with obtaining their formal qualification and less with wider aspects of higher education. The views and attitudes prevalent in the student population and within institutions themselves on such issues vary widely. This debate is an international one, but is especially relevant in the rapidly changing higher education systems of Central and Eastern Europe.     

A PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION PERSPECTIVE ON THE STUDY OF HIGHER EDUCATION

This article explores the relationship between higher education research and the study of public administration, the concpetual perspectives of which are useful for understanding the links between government policy‐making and higher education. A short introduction to the study of public administration is followed by the presentation of six newly evolved concepts of public administration which are labeled as follows: comprehensive rationality, the community action approach, the public choice approach, political systems theory, policy sciences, and contingency and inter‐organizational approaches. All of these have contributed to the eclecticism and the conceptual pluralism of the discipline of public administration as a whole. Having been adapted to the theoretical underpinnings of the administration of higher education, these six concepts have stimulated the development of four theoretical models for the analysis of decision‐making processes in higher education: the analytical or rational actor model, the garbage can or organized anarchy model, the collegiality model, and the political model. Specific problems in higher education administration have been addressed, as they have arisen, with reference to one or more of the six concepts and the four decision‐making models. For the future, the public administration approach to higher education will be most likely to draw upon the study of co‐ordination mechanisms in collective decision‐making processes and the comparative analysis of the external functions and performances of government.     

Private tutoring in Eastern Europe and Central Asia: policy choices and implications

Private tutoring has become increasingly visible in Eastern Europe and Central Asia since the collapse of the socialist bloc in the early 1990s. Yet, this unprecedented growth of private tutoring, in its varied forms and arrangements, has remained largely unnoticed by policymakers in the region. Based on the data from the cross‐national studies of private tutoring in 12 countries, this explorative study examines factors driving the demand for private tutoring and discusses government responses to private tutoring in Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine (research conducted in 2004–2005) and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan (research conducted in 2005–2006). The article analyzes various policy contexts and examines challenges that confront education stakeholders and policymakers as they formulate their responses to the rapidly‐spreading and constantly‐changing phenomenon of private tutoring. Finally, the article discusses whether, and to what extent, the existence of regulatory mechanisms influences the scope, nature, and implications of private tutoring across the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.     

国外高等职业技术教育特点及对我国的启示

培养一批既掌握实践技能又懂科技知识的高级应用型人才,是保证和促进一个国家经济社会可持续发展的重要因素。欧美发达国家在高等职业技术教育方面采取的相关措施,为整个国家经济的快速发展提供了丰富的高级应用型技术人才,也为我国高等职业技术教育改革提供了参考经验。基于此,在探讨欧美发达国家高等职业技术教育方面的共同特点的基础上,深入分析其对我国高等职业技术教育的启示,以期促进我国高等职业技术教育持续发展。     

Common legacy,different paths: the transformation of educational systems in the Czech Republic,Slovakia, Hungary and Poland

The goal of this work is to better understand the institutional changes in the educational systems of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. We demonstrate that the educational reforms implemented during the transformation introduced very different institutional arrangements in the four countries, despite the fact that their systems shared many common characteristics at the beginning of the 1990s. Differences between the national approaches to educational reforms are particularly reflected in the modes of education decentralisation, the level of school autonomy, accountability and funding mechanisms. We believe that different institutional arrangements may have contributed to the divergent achievements of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland in the PISA programme.