A view from the European Parliament

By Ms. Doris PACK on Jun 01, 2007
Status: Public

MP Doris Pack provided us with an article on "Educational Reforms - Premises for Successful S&T Cooperation and Strategies in the Western Balkans" for the see-science.eu eJournal spring 07.

The area which probably deserves the greatest attention and focus both from the EU institutions and WBC in their process of transition and EU integration is the field of educational reforms and development of knowledge-based economies and societies in general. The emphasis on political and administrative changes should be fully accompanied by a strong commitment to educational reforms as well as to fostering and advancing reforms concerning public research and science and technology cooperation in general.

Having realised several shortcomings at the level of official political representation, as well as at the level of public administration, the Western Balkan countries have now initiated a demanding and often hard and painful process of core reforms concerning the area of education.
There is a clear EU strategy to support the internationalisation of research-funding in the countries of the WBC e.g. through the Southeast European Era-Net (SEE-ERA.NET) designed to contribute to the “EU Balkan Countries Action Plan in Science and Technology”, which has been adopted by the Council of Ministers in Thessaloniki. Besides, there is also the expressed intention of several of the WBC (Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro and Macedonia) to associate to FP7.

Nevertheless, we have to note that a lot of difficulties beset this process, especially concerning the slowness of reforms in higher education. There is a strong top-down approach of the state towards universities, as well as a lack of independent and sustainable initiatives to support research projects. This we can notice even in the case of Croatia with its positive developments in educational reforms and the field of scientific research. We can take Bosnia as an extreme example where there are great problems with the adoption of a Higher Educational Law, a Law on the Education Agency, a Framework Law on Vocational Education and Training and a Framework on Pre-school Education. Actually, this should not be so surprising if we take a closer look at the complex and rather non-functional institutional framework. I especially refer here to the fact that there are 14 Ministers in the country in charge of education.

Educational reforms actually play a key role in the whole region in the context of the process of regional stabilisation and the EU integration process.

In March last year, European Ministers of Education pointed out that the Lisbon Agenda is the basis for educational reforms not only for the EU countries but also for the WBCs. Emphasis should also be put on the involvement of universities from the region in Community programmes such as Erasmus Mundus and the Life Long Learning programme. This is one reason why the authorities in BiH should be urged to proceed with the educational reforms.

Another reason for the urgent need for university reforms in the region is the fact that projects mainly involve academic staff and researchers at higher education institutions. Universities in WBCs have the potential to play a major role in the promotion of socially responsible institutions with far-reaching consequences for the general development of social, economic and political spheres. Equally, universities have significant influence within the education-research-innovation triangle in promoting EU standards.
Therefore, strong support for higher education institutions should be part of every political strategy for the region, in order to deal with both past problems as well as emerging ones.

Besides the substantial support of national governments from the region for SEE-ERA.NET, there should also be a strong commitment of governmental assistance to regional cooperation. The conditions currently demanded by the Bologna process concerning mobility of students and academic staff could be accomplished precisely through regional cooperation in the fields of research and education.

In this regard, new conceptions, frames of mobility of students, researchers and academic staff should be much more developed, thus satisfying the basic premises of SEE-ERA.NET. It is very important to understand that one of the core postulates of the bilateral S&T cooperation within the Southeast European Era-Net is that the leaders should also be involved in the field of new science and research strategies.

So, instead of a vicious circle consisting of a combination of political irresponsibility and complete lack of efficiency and quality of educational processes and applicable scientific technologies, the other combination needs to replace it. In fact, all these processes of change aimed at accomplishing the EU standards should be accompanied with a real understanding of the importance of changes in educational processes in general, as well as the procedures regarding the application of research projects.

If the promotion of new EU standards continues together with reflection on and an analysis of existing educational models, necessary changes will get new drive through the support of the wider academic circle.