Post-secondary education is one of the most effective and efficient sectors of the Czech economy. On global scale the ratio of its performance to price is highly above-average. Czech universities produce graduates of comparable quality for fraction of the price in comparison with the German or Austrian competition.
If there is a sector that works extraordinarily well, it is debatable whether one should talk about its fundamental reform. It is therefore good that the representatives of post-secondary schools managed to halt the going armoured train of reforms of tertiary education.
Association with the fall of the cabinet is purely accidental. Minister Liška would probably be forced to halt the speeded reform in any case. The team that prepared the reform was inherited by the minister and he himself had only little time to enter the process actively. And so the reform of post-secondary institutions did not bring the expected points to him, rather on the contrary: conflicts with people with whom he would have probably gotten along well under other circumstances. Hysterical attacks in media against Cardinal Vlk and the Charles University President Hampl were the peak of clumsiness of an otherwise medially capable minister.
Post-secondary school teachers and students said therefore “no” to the diagnosis and proposal of a therapy from the ministerial workshop. However, that does not mean that the academic people are satisfied with the state of post-secondary schools and do not feel the need of change including the modification of the current law on post-secondary education.
I will try to recapitulate here the main problems of our post-secondary schools and suggest realistic solutions.
1) Underfinancing of post-secondary education:
Every government that is serious about post-secondary education has to invest in it. Currently, financial means for one student (calculated per parity) correspond roughly to one half of the OECD countries average. The first and biggest mistake of ministerial reform teams was that they endorsed a postulate of budget neutrality of the reform, that is of “not pouring” new means in the system. This doomed the whole project to failure. Sustainable reform must offer profit to all key players. That means in our case:
More money to schools to enhance the quality.
More quality for students for their bigger effort.
More quality for the state while increasing the financial contribution.
A competitive salary for quality teachers, however, only under condition of increasing competition and maybe shorter holiday.
A capable reformer will compile a compact construction of such formulas and will submit to the cabinet a substantiated request for a package of money for the reform.
2) Blind alley of higher technical schools:
Currently this problem affects only about 10,000 students, however higher technical schools (at least some of them) deserve a better legal regulation – nevertheless, in a special law on professional institutes (similarly like in Denmark for example).
Completed subjects should be evaluated by so-called credits and some of these credits could be acknowledged by post-secondary schools.
However, the system of financial regulation must be set in such a way so that post-secondary schools are motivated to acknowledge these credits.
3) Small diversity of post-secondary schools – every post-secondary school has today ambition to become a university, preferably a research university.
This can be solved by introducing diverse criteria for evaluating the quality of practically oriented local post-secondary schools – then schools themselves will apply for this category. It would be sufficient if they were paid not based on the amount of scientific publications, but for example according to how their students succeed on the labour market. Nevertheless, under the current system of financing, evaluation of quality makes no sense at all, because if one school is to get more, another would have to get less, which would now lead to its end.
4) Consequences of introducing bachelor student programmes:
In some subjects (for example in the case of pedagogical faculties) the forced introduction of bachelor exams did not prove useful and it would be necessary to abolish them and to get back to the “long” five-year master programmes. It shows that not even post-secondary schools can be shown good by violence. [Ukazuje se, že ani vysokým školám nelze dobro prokazovat násilím.] The European credit transfer system (ECTS) should be obligatory for all post-secondary schools.
5) Small diversity of study programmes – connected with the previous point
Practically oriented bachelor programmes find interested students and employers only slowly. An absolute majority of bachelors want to continue in master degree programmes and many post-secondary schools willingly accept them even at the cost of further lowering of the quality.
On the other hand, bachelor degree programmes that would have broader and more general focus are missing. The solution is simple: not to require by law that every bachelor programme prepares students for practical life as well as for further studies. To connect the allowed number of master degree students with the quality scientific outputs of the given institution.
6) Consequences of the increase of the number of students:
The campaign increase of the number of students has led to a crawling decrease of demands on students. Mass bachelor degree programmes offer little motivation for excellence. Students are not prepared for their exams and consequently waste teachers’ time.
Solution: to set a fee for re-sitting an exam that would be paid to the scholarship fund. Such a measure would have three advantages: it motivates weaker payers as well as excellent beneficiaries of merit scholarships and moreover, there is protection against abuse by acquisitive examiners (teachers have no advantages from increasing financial means in scholarship fund).
The author is a professor at Prague’s Czech Technical University. He was a representative at the council of post-secondary schools during discussion on the ministerial proposal of law on tertiary education.
To be continued in Thursday’s Prague Daily Monitor issue.
