Keeping the higher education promises of Maidan

Seven weeks have passed since the government in Ukraine changed. The situation in some eastern cities remains unstable. In such conditions the new government coalition has launched a series of reforms including reform of higher education.

In the past fortnight parliament adopted at first reading a draft law that was designed by a working group under the leadership of Mykhailo Zhurovskyi, rector of the National Technical University of Ukraine - Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, or KPI.

The current Minister of Education and Science Serhiy Kvit was a member of this group and used to write regularly for University World News about the process and progress of the group. The draft law is different from the current law and, in general, it opens up a process of deregulation and decentralisation of higher education.

However, the working group created it at a time when the whole political situation was quite different. All that put certain restrictions on it.

It was necessary for the working group to take into account the position of the ruling faction, as without its votes the draft law would have had no chance. Because of this, some progressive rules were not included in the text.

Maidan - Independence Square, or a place to discuss and solve significant problems - and the revolution created a more favourable climate for radical reform and public demand for such changes has increased hugely.

Academia is no exception. A striking example of this has been the recent protests by faculty and students in some universities against rectors who have turned into something more similar to local feudal lords, who use universities for their own profit.

Amendments

In February 2014 a series of roundtables was held where experts, including the authors of the draft law, came to the conclusion that the text should be improved.

Under Ukrainian law, a draft law can be changed only between readings. It should pass the first reading and after that some amendments may be adopted or rejected during the second reading, which might take place in May 2014.

Key attention should be paid to democratic issues at universities.

The draft law guarantees mainly financial autonomy and just some elements of academic autonomy for higher education institutions. However, it allows the main power within universities to stay in the hands of rectors.

Having significant administrative resources, rectors directly influence the formation and decisions of collective bodies. Even the decisions of the academic senate are only enforced as a result of the rector's order.

So, firstly, it is essential to increase the power of the senate and, secondly, to delineate rectors' and senates' spheres of influence.

Transparency problem

Another problem that was not solved in the draft law was lack of transparency in financial and personnel policies.

One of the main reasons for faculty and student protests against their management was the denial of access to a variety of documents that regulate the overall life of the university, including its finances.

This lack of transparency is confirmed by a ranking of 110 public universities that have national status, conducted by the Centre for Society Research, a think-tank in Kyiv. The ranking showed how open higher education institutions are about their financial records and how they have responded to special requests for access to information.

Each national university received five information requests: about budget, staff lists, a list of real estate, a list of vehicles, and copies of rectors' and vice-rectors' declarations. The results were predictable - most universities denied access or simply ignored the requests.

However, the documents that were provided show that lack of public control has resulted in clearly inefficient budget outflows.

For example, in some public universities the average salary of senior management is 150% higher than the average salary of professors and lecturers. There are many rectors who have purchased luxury cars that cost up to US$90,000 for their own use.

In Ukraine 43% of university lecturers have a monthly income of less than US$375, according to data of the Centre for Society Research. This is evidence of rectors' wasteful budget spending.

Autonomy, lower workloads

It is no secret that in such a situation the autonomy of universities, which is planned to be significantly expanded, will only result in greater autonomy for rectors rather than for the wider academy.

Therefore, during the second reading the draft law should be updated to the effect that universities are required to publish a full financial report for public examination, including budgets, reports on their performance and a report on the distribution of all additional payments.

It is also crucial to increase transparency around competition for administrative and teaching positions. Maidan placed a clear demand on the new government to fight against corruption and higher education is no exception.

Another crucial amendment of the draft law should increase academic autonomy.

The working group laid the foundations but did not provide universities with the power to make final decisions around the granting of postgraduate degrees, academic titles and recognition of foreign diplomas.

Incomplete solutions will not have any impact in this area. Only a full transfer of responsibility to universities will create real competition.

One more disadvantage of the draft law is the absence of a limit on the tutorial workload faculty have to bear. Under current law, the maximum permissible load is 900 hours per year, which is twice or even three times more than the workload of faculty in the European Union.

The study by the Centre for Society Research shows that this is often the norm in Ukrainian universities and that sometimes university managements even try to illegally exceed it.

Therefore, limits on the annual volume of workload should be preserved in the draft law, but firstly reduced. Many experts agree that the optimum limit is 600 tutorial hours per year.

It is partly possible to bring about this change without additional budget spending because a reduction of the teaching workload requires dropping the student tutorial workload. Currently Ukrainian students face a third greater teaching time than their European counterparts.

Consequently, study programmes are bloated by courses that are often repetitive. In turn, overloaded students lose motivation and often choose plagiarism or bribery.

Need to keep vigilant

These and some other changes should be made to the draft law during the second reading in parliament. Only then can we move beyond the compromised version put before the previous defunct government and create a truly progressive law on higher education.

However, for people who follow the situation in Ukraine it is no secret that representatives of the old regime have not disappeared and continue to sit in parliament. In particular, the members of parliament who protect the interests of the former minister of education and rectors still have their mandates.

It is clear that these people will try to push through certain regressive amendments. Counteracting these is possible only through public vigilance. Therefore, it is urgent that the public remains on guard and keeps the process under a watchful eye.

* Yegor Stadny is a higher education policy analyst at the Centre for Society Research, a think-tank in Kyiv. He received an MA in history at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and an MA in East European Studies at Warsaw University. He is currently doing his PhD at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.