Responsibility of Departments and

Schools in the Realization of the

Bologna Process

PROCESSING THE BOLOGNA PROCESS: CURRENT

LOSSES AND FUTURE GAINS
ZAGREB, MARCH 6, 2010

DARKO POLŠEK
DPOLSEK@FFZG.HR
Three topics of the presentation

1. Responsibility OF
AUTHORITIES
2. Responsibility OF
ACTORS: Example
(PHILOSOPHICAL
FACULTY,
UNIVERSITY OF
ZAGREB)
3. Future of humanities
(FUTURE GAINS in
the Bologna process)
Responsibility of authorities (My personal responsibility)
Responsibility of authorities II

Croatian Ministry of education & Rector’s Conference

2005: s.c. Bologna “walkabout schedule” (“hodogram”):
1. Ministry’s Decree (September 2004): HE Institutions should draft
study programs till January 15, 2005. (timespan: 2,5 months).
Deadline for HE Institutions to deliver elaborated Study programs
till April 1, 2005 (time involved: 5 months).
3. Evaluation process of HE Programs: From April 1 to May 15, 2005
4. End of Evaluation and Official results: June 5, 2005
5. Result: about 1000 programs submitted by April 1, 2005, around
800 programs evaluated (just undergraduate ones)
6. Result: from 800 programs submitted – 80% positive; 20% letter of
expectation;
7. By September 19, 2005 – almost 100% programs got accredited by
the National Council for Higher Education.
Responsibility of authorities III

Consequences:
1. Rush to finish the requirements for licencing
2. All programs got accredited almost authomatically (especially at
state Universities)
3. Very different quality and enormous diversity of study programs

Why have the authorities decided to licence programs in

such a rush? (“preko koljena”)
Whose fault is it that the programs were poorly designed?
Why have the authorities left important issues to be
decided by the faculties and departments?
Responsibility of both types of actors:
(Vagueness of Bologna)

Consequences II:
What was not decided by the decree (licence)/nor stipulated
by Bologna declaration:
1. Financing of programs? (by the state, university, faculty, department or by student
participation)
2. Coordination of programs (at the national or university levels)?
3. Coherence of various types of degrees at a single university? (4+1; 3+2; 5+0)
4. Coherence within a Faculty?
5. Coherence within a Department / among Departments?
6. What should be done with the students who did not finish courses?
7. Should enrollment in new academic year be conditioned by the passing of exams from
the previous years/semesters?
8. How are new degrees going to be mixed with the previous ones?
9. What is the status in the job market of bachelors?

Since Bologna declaration does not require any precise course of action in such matters,
problems above were left to Faculties and Departments
 Responsibility of Faculties and Departments I

consequences above are essential for evaluation of the

Bologna process (precisely those left to faculties and
departments)
Resulting picture: VERY CHAOTIC

1. Financing: At some faculties, students do not finacially participate, at

others they are the prime sponsors of programs.
But the more important thing: at the same faculties, there are hundreds of
variations of student financial participation: by merit (academic grades), by a
direct inrollment (s.c. “combatants’ descendants” in 2005), by a combination of
entering quotas, by direct payment for an academic year, by a direct payment for
a semester, by a direct payment for an ECTS (!), by a combination of grades
(depending on courses required), by a number of previously finished years of
study, or by all of the above etc.
 Responsibility of Faculties and Departments II

 Variety of STUDYING REGIMES: (examples from my faculty)

 Undergraduate: “Anglistics”, anthropology, archeology, Czech,
ethnology and cultural anthropology, philosophy, phonetics, French,
“Germanistics”, Greek, “Hungarology”, “Indology”, Information
Science, South Slavic languages, Comparative literature,
“Croatistics”, Latin, Linguistics, Pedagogy, Polish, Portugese,
History, Art history, Psychology, Romanian, Russian, Slovak,
Sociology, Spanish, Swedish, “Italianistics”, “Turkology”, Ukrainian.
 Graduate #of specializations (more than one): “Anglistics” (4);
Archeology (3); Czech (2); Philosophy (2; “scientific” and
“educational”); Phonetics (3); French (3); German (3); Greek (2);
Information science (5); South Slavic L. (3); “Croatistics” (3); Latin
(2); Linguistics (5); Polish (2); History (5); Art history (4 modules for
major-minor; 1 spec. for single) Russian (2); Sociology (2); Spanish
(3); Swedish (2); “Italianistics” (3); Ukrainian (2)
 Philosophy (major or minor) 4+1; Indology (major or minor) 4+1;
Latin (major or minor) 4+1; Greek (major, minor) 4+1; Ukrainian
(major or minor) 4+1; Croatian (major, minor, single) 3+2;
Psychology (major only) 3+2
Responsibility of Faculties and Departments III

 Calculation of various regimes:

 33 departments (undergraduate) in major-minor combination = 1089
combinations
 Plus 8 depts in major only combination = 1097 combinations
 Calculation of variety of combinations with different regimes
(4+1 or 3+2)
 Calculation of combinations with different regimes + number
of financing combinations (slide 7)

 Outcome I: more combinations than the number of students

enrolled. (Comment – later)
 Outcome II: There is no valid measure for student quality
ranking (so, students cannot compete properly for domestic grants and
grants abroad).
 Responsibility of Faculties and Departments IV

 Some students study under the previous regime, most of them

under the newer one.
 Even bachelor’s certificates differ.
 Some have to finish the 4th year in order to get a baccalaureat...
 Some have to pay for the whole year albeit they need just a single
ECTS for a baccalaureat...
 Which does not make them employable anyway (allegedly because
of the competition with the number of masters candidates on the job
market, but de facto because baccalaureat does not grant them
employability – courses do not give them sufficient specializations).

 Outcome III: REVOLT AGAINST “BOLOGNA” (several student

strikes in the last couple of years)
Responsibility of Faculties and Departments V
The prime target of the managers in our public sector in
general: to show “growth”
In the academic sector:
1. growth in the number of enrolled students
2. growth of tuition revenues
3. (MY FACULTY AS AN EXAMPLE): growth in study specializations
or the number of modules
1. Our intention at present is to found new departments: for
“Nederlandistics” and “Judaism”, and new modules – like “Creative
writing”
2. Proliferation of doctoral studies
Outcome IV: PROLIFERATION INSTEAD OF
CONSOLIDATION, ENORMOUS FINANCIAL BURDEN
 Responsibility of Faculties and Departments VI

The question of (mis)management:

How is the “growth” achieved?
 OUTSOURCING (providing courses with student financing,
while the costs stay on the budget list - for the taxpayers’
money) –
 “OSTAP-BENDERISM” (Ostap Bender is the character from Iljif-Petrov
books – most notable for inventing socialist “schemes” - institutions without
anyone working for them, the funniest one being “the Institute for hoofs and
chevrons” (za rogove i kopita).
 This is the method which involves asking for new, “developmental”
working places from the Ministy, and then
 Instead of using them to fill educational holes in existing modules,
founding new study courses (departments, modules, even
institutions etc.) with such new jobs.
Responsible answer to present challenges
(Example: My faculty)

CONSOLIDATION of courses, departments, variety of

studies and financing combinations
Dividing faculty onto two departments:
 Department for various languages (where a sequence of studying is
required)
 Department for human and social sciences (where the study regime
on undergraduate courses would be left for students to decide)
 Kepping ECTS for the workload
 Outcome: baccalaureat of human and social sciences
 Graduate courses would entail specializations, and eligibility of
students would depend on the courses taken at undergraduate level.
To get a masters, various specializations would require enrollment at
specific (already existing) courses.
 Building common PhD studies for these departments (again, built by
already existing, but previously not enrolled courses)
Responsibility of Faculties and Departments VII
Responsibility of authorities III

This was indeed the case

 (at FF – from 1980’s number of departments rose by 120%,
number of combinations has to be squared at least)
 Number of students in the last decade rose by 100%
 Number of doctoral studies rose by more than 100%

 Number of universities from 1990’s rose from 4 to 6

 Number of polytechnics from 1990’s rose by 100%

Outcome V: EDUCATIONAL BUBBLE (similar to the

financial bubble which caused the present crisis)
What is to be done? (Future gains)

Proper management of public resources would

require a CONSOLIDATION of costs and a
consolidation of programs (AT THE UNIVERSITY
OR DEPARTMENTAL LEVELS). “BUBBLE SHOULD
BURST”
 Do academic institutions have the strength to do so? No. (It
might possibly require jobs’ consolidation as well)
 Do authorities have the strength to do so? No.
The way out of such a bubble?
 Market forces
 Paying (perhaps even) by the ECTS
 Future of humanities in the Bologna process?

 Enrollment quotas for humanities and social sciences in Croatia have

always been high, so there seems to be no problem for the future in
that respect.
 But: if the quality does not follow, the rise of quotas and costs will
backfire: if academic institutions do not take care of the quality
IMMEDIATELY, job market and finances will prevent students from
entering such institutions.
If the present trend continues, egalitarianism and
proliferation will backfire: instead of making students
responsible citizens, we shall be providing a NEW
SOURCE OF PAUPERISATION (example: Greece)
Elitism or egalitarianism? Pendulum should now swing
towards elitism. (Role model: USA)