Regional

5 Former Soviet Republics Apply for Bologna Membership

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have submitted applications for membership of the Bologna educational integration process, complete with national reports available online at the Bologna-Bergen Summit website. As part of the European project to harmonize systems of higher education, member states are required to submit national reports on the progress being made in conjunction with the reforms called for by the Bologna Accords. The latest round of reports for the May Bergen summit of national ministers of education have been submitted and are available online.

— Bologna-Bergen Website
January 2005

Belarus

Regime Further Suppresses Academic Autonomy

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has announced a new presidential decree, ruling that lecturers and teachers who engage in “behavior incompatible with their professional activity” can be stripped of their qualifications and consequently their jobs.

The action is seen as an attempt to suppress political dissent, echoing similar practices in the former Soviet Union. The subordination of Belarus’ validating body, the Higher Attestation Committee (VAK) to the President’s office would seem to re-enforce this idea.

Recently VAK has assessed degree dissertations for political correctness and there have already been a number of incidents of blatant suppression and censorship. These include the dismissal of a PhD student for her choice of dissertation, the life and times of a Belarusian military revolutionary. Late last year this exercise in conformity was extended when the Belarusian Education Ministry criticized the level of teaching of state ideology in higher education. A press release complained of “insincerity” in lectures and a lack of knowledge of Belarus’ basic political, social and economic identity (see March/April issue of WENR).

— The Belarusian Review
Dec. 9, 2004

Kazakhstan

Mass Student Strike Avoided as Education Minister Dismissed

Kazakhstan managed to avoid a nationwide student protest in November over a decision by the ministry of education to renege on university fee arrangements agreed to in 1999. The students only held off on their threat thanks to Kazak president Nursultan Nazarabaev’s decision to intervene. The President dismissed education minister Jaksybek Kulekeev and his deputy for breaching a 2003 presidential amendment of the 1999 legislation.

Under the 1999 agreement students were granted access to interest-free loans, sufficient to pay for their education and to be paid back within 15 years of graduation. A 2003 amendment allowed for an increase in fees and interest, but this, students were told, would not apply to those who had availed of the initial scheme. In early November Minister Kulekeev reneged on the agreement, informing them that they too would be subject to the increase. The student reaction was to hold protests across the country. In late November they told the government it had one week to provide a solution before a strike would be called on December 4, forcing the President to fire his education minister and his deputy.

— Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Dec. 7, 2004

Russia

New Sino-Russian University to be Built

Suifenhe, a city in China’s Heilongjiang Province will see the development of a 100-acre campus for a Sino-Russian university. The project is a joint initiative between Suifnhe City Government, a real estate company from Hong Kong called Shimao Group and a Russian company.

The university is slated to offer studies in languages, commerce, trade and tourism. The first courses will be offered in 2006 as the completion of construction permits.

— People’s Daily Online
Jan. 11, 2005

Ukraine

Private Universities and Academic Integrity

The results of a data set on academic corruption at Ukrainian private universities and published in International Higher Education suggests that while academic corruption is very much an accepted practice in the tertiary sector there are at least a percentage of newly-licensed private universities that by making academic integrity, over profit motives, a central theme of institutional culture, have begun to arrest the deteriorating reputation of higher education institutions in the former Soviet Union.

Interviews were conducted in spring 2004 with 43 rectors, vice rectors and administrators at five private universities located in Lviv, Odessa, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kyiv. Concerning licensure and accreditation, it was generally agreed that some form of bribery was necessary for a successful outcome. Despite a small groundswell of opposition to the system among some education leaders, the culture of corruption is so deeply ingrained within the system that licensure and accreditation of a new private university will in no way become reality in the absence of some form of bribe.

Exploring the situation internally, 77 faculty and 239 students at the same five private universities were interviewed regarding their own personal experiences with academic corruption, ranging from students bribing their way through the admissions process to professors requiring students to purchase their books and provide proof of the purchase. Over 90 percent of students and 95 percent of faculty reported that they had neither experienced nor knew of situations in which bribes were used to gain favorable examination results. Similar figures were reported for incidences of “petty corruption” such as professors requiring a student to provide proof that they had purchased their books.

The authors of the study conclude that while they are aware that the institutions they surveyed clearly seek to be corruption-free, the data suggests that they have been able to foster such an atmosphere in the face of norms deeply ingrained and largely accepted within the Ukrainian higher education system. Furthermore, if academic integrity is made the fundamental building block of institutional culture then private universities can create a climate that can begin the process of reversing the harmful reputation that corruption has cast on higher education systems within the former Soviet Union.

— International Higher Education
Winter 2005

Agreement Signed with Vietnam on Mutual Recognition of Degrees

Vietnam and Ukraine have signed an agreement on the mutual recognition of academic credentials. Under the agreement, certificates of graduation from junior high, secondary and vocational education schools and university degrees will be mutually recognized. The agreement also notes that the Vietnamese doctorate is equivalent to the degree of candidate doctorate in Ukraine, while the doctor of science degree, and titles of associate professor issued in Vietnam are equivalent to those issued in Ukraine.

— Voice of Vietnam
Dec. 10, 2004