THINKYOUNG JOURNAL #1

THY J Nr.I• I-V-MMXIII

ournal

Higher Across

E

Skills Mismatch and European Youth Interview with MEP Fisas Erasmus for All Hot Spot: The Balkans

ducation urope

Nina Brankovic Nikola Baketa Thomas Kosters Andrea Contigiani Alessandro Tirapani Bénédicte Le Galliot Pepe Valls Nathaniel Copsey Marko Kovacic Design by Cristina Frauca

© 2013 THINKYOUNG Place du Luxembourg 6 - Box 2 1050 - Bruxelles Belgium info alberto@thinkyoung.eu

WHAT IS

THINK

YOUNG ThinkYoung Lobbies for the presence of young people in European decision-making.

Focused on conducting surveys, organising conferences, producing documentaries and publishing research by young Europeans, ThinkYoung aims to make “Brussels� aware of what young people think.

Its vision is to make Europe the best place to live for young people.

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CONTENT

06 / INTERVIEW WITH MEP FISAS 08 / SKILLS MISMATCH AND EUROPEAN YOUTH Toward a comprehensive approach and efficient labour market 12 / ERASMUS FOR ALL A European education and efficient skills improvement and mobility 15 / EXPERTS VIEW Nathaniel Copsey 18 / USA WINDOW A comment on entrepreneurship education in Europe 22 / HOT SPOT: THE BALKANS 23 The story of Croatia 25 Financing of Higher Education in Croatia 27 / CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION GOVERNANCE Ambiguity of higher education policy making in Bosnia and Herzegovina

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WELCOME TO THY JOURNAL It is 2013 and traditional media is out of business. Newspapers, magazines, books: paper is dead. So why did we go into this venture? Because we like

now be formed from the bedrock of skills and innovation.

Our Research Centre has conducted surveys and research on the effects of the

their views of the state of tertiary education in these areas.

Finally, taking into consideration that entrepreneurship is starting to be seen as a key

challenges. Because we dare.

Because when people told us “it’s impossible” we thought it would be a good idea to give a new meaning to the word “impossible.” The THY journal will be a collection of our researches on young people. And we will print it.

The THY Journal is an expression tool of ThinkYoung. Through it, we share the results of our projects and compare them with the opinions of experts.

For this premiere issue, we have chosen the topic of higher education throughout Europe.

Since globalisation has divided forms of labour geographically, education is certainly a sensitive area affecting long-term sustainability – In order to remain economically competitive, Europe’s labour force must

new ‘Erasmus for All’ programme, and furthermore, its impact on the ‘youth and the skills’ mismatch phenomenon.

We have contacted the European Institutions to understand the current level of integration of higher education across the European Union, focusing on the role of the state and universities in improving the employability of students.

Amid the recent debate concerning the role of the UK in the EU, ThinkYoung has contacted British professors to explore the ramifications of this debate within higher education.

Being aware of the admission of Croatia into the EU next August and the fact that the Balkans are a target region for the EU, ThinkYoung has also consulted young experts to gain

factor for the future of the EU, ThinkYoung has organised its first Entrepreneurship Winter School, the third Entrepreneurship School altogether.

In addition it has contacted experts in Europe and the United States to draw comparisons between entrepreneurship education in the two continents.

The end result is a wide picture of the state of European higher education, which includes the opinions of students, professors, policy makers and professionals. Such a picture will be useful as we join the debate surrounding EU higher education.

At ThinkYoung we like to challenge the impossible and take a long term approach. It is 2013 and we just printed the first issue of a new traditional media.

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Interview With Mep Fisas

“It is extremely important to strengthen and improve the relationship between businesses and universities”

By Pepe Valls Does it make sense to include business personnel among teaching staff and in the quality assurance agencies, in order to ease the access of businesses to research, technology and knowledge transfer as well as access to talents and for universities, to improve their students’ employability?

I believe that it is extremely important to strengthen and improve the relationship between businesses and universities. The EU has always promoted this connection between universities and businesses, research and training centres as a very useful way to integrate students into the labour market and to help companies and research institutions to value young wellprepared new workers. A good example is the ‘Erasmus Student Mobility for Placements’ programme, which has enabled students at higher education institutions

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to spend a traineeship period of 3-12 months in an enterprise or organisation in another participating country.

In this sense, ‘Erasmus for All – the EU Programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sports’, proposed by the Commission, also covers this subject. Its ‘Key Action 2’ includes a range of collaborative cross-border activities, such as ‘Strategic Partnerships’, which comprise of agreements for a maximum of three years on various joint, cross-border activities that are signed by education/training or youth institutions and similar institutions with other relevant partners, such as enterprises. Also, it foresees ‘Knowledge Alliances’, which are large partnerships focusing mainly on knowledge transfer among universities and enterprises.

It is important to mention that this programme is now being discussed within the EU in order to reach an agreement

among the Council, the Parliament and the Commission, and its name may change to ‘YES Europe’ (Youth, Education, Sport), as proposed by the Parliament.

Should the state play a more active role, for instance, by creating structures which promote partnerships, giving grants to universities allowing them to conduct research that businesses might be interested in and providing fiscal incentives to companies?

Absolutely. These kind of structures help students to find their first job, which is highly important considering the increasing unemployment rates in Europe as a result of the economic and financial crisis. Initiatives, such as grants to students to participate in traineeships or research programmes in enterprises, are a very useful tool in the fight against unemployment, and at the same

“

It is important to adapt academic study plans and business needs in order to improve efficiency and competitiveness

time they enable businesses to be in direct contact with universities, facilitating their competitiveness. In fact, in my country, we have a foundation (Fundación Universidad Empresa) that aims to promote and develop knowledge, dialogue and cooperation tools among universities and businesses.

If academia adapts to incorporate business considerations in order to enhance students’ employability, is there a risk that future professionals will not attain the necessary civic and citizenship skills to carry out their work in an ethical way?

In my opinion, both approaches are absolutely compatible. It is important to adapt academic study plans to business needs in order to improve efficiency and competitiveness, but at the same time we cannot lose our moral and ethical principles in our everyday work. Students should acquire the latter at university, as we should not forget the importance of the ‘human’ aspect of work.

We understand that the ‘Erasmus for All’ initiative aims to simplify the ‘Long Life Learning’ programme. Is it possible that such simplification will end up reducing the number of people benefiting from it?

”

The Commission’s proposal foresees a budget increase of about 70% with respect to the former programmes (€19 billion for the period 2014-2020). However, the final amount will depend on the Multiannual Financial Framework. The simplification does not mean a reduction of budget or beneficiaries. According to the Commission, up to 5 million people, almost twice as many as now, could get the chance to study or train abroad with a grant from ‘Erasmus for All’.

Two-thirds of the education budget is going to be invested in student mobility.

However, the latest report from the Qualifications Framework Working Group from the Bologna Process stated that the economic crisis is preventing governments from effectively modernising their academic systems. Should ‘Erasmus for All’ invest more in modernising and harmonising the education models in order to make them more comparable?

The proposed programme merges all current programmes and actions in the field of education: higher education (Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus, Tempus and bilateral programmes between the EU and third countries), school education (Comenius), vocational education and training (Leonardo da Vinci), adult education (Grundtvig) and youth (Youth in Action). It also includes provisions for Jean Monnet activities, and a separate chapter for sport. The Parliament (represented by Doris Pack, Chair of the Committee on Culture and the rapporteur on this programme) is convinced that the identity of individual educational fields needs to be kept and strengthened – therefore it is crucial to continue using the current brand names. This can be done while maintaining the more streamlined structure proposed by the Commission.

Due to the economic and financial crisis, the process of adapting academic systems in Member States could, indeed, slow down. However, ‘Erasmus for All’ should help to carry out this adaptation, as one of the main actions that the programme envisages is the following: “Support for policy reform in Member States and cooperation with non-EU countries, with a focus on strengthening the evidence-base for policy making and exchange of good practices. Support will include the implementation of EU transparency tools, cross-country studies and support for specific policy agendas such as the Bologna (higher education) and Copenhagen (vocational education and training) processes.”

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SKILLS MISMATCH AND

EUROPEAN

YOUTH 08

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Skills Mismatch and European Youth Toward a comprehensive approach

By Alessandro Tirapani Is what you’ve studied leading to your ideal job? Do you feel qualified for your current or prospective job? What can companies do to find candidates perfectly matching their open position? All the answers lead to the issue: skills mismatch, which today is a trending topic in Europe.

Think tanks, European institutions, political parties, industrial associations are carrying out insightful research on this phenomenon. Still, it is almost impossible to define skills mismatch with a set of clear characteristics and social or geographical limits. Moreover, the approach towards how youth is affected by skills mismatch is too often misleading and bounded to a single perspective.

From March until October 2012, as a policy researcher, I have led the research center

of ThinkYoung through a European journey aiming to depict what skills mismatch is and how youth perceive it. The final result was a 60-page report based on pan-European research and on six interviews with experts on the topic; the survey at the core of the project targeted Europeans under-30 from 48 countries, and has been translated into 16 languages, eventually gathering almost 900 answers.

So, what is skills mismatch and why is it relevant? Let’s start with the classic definition: the gap between an individual’s job skills and the demands of the job market.

In its strongest form, among other drawbacks, it causes: • at company level: high recruiting and training costs for specialised workers, poor working performances, underutilisation of employees’ potentials, deta-

•

chment from the company, frustration and high turnover; at social level: higher unemployment, a progressive drop in productivity, lower innovation and a gap between the education and job market.

Strictly speaking, skills mismatch is a natural part of any liberal economic system; every individual decides independently which skills to develop, according to both personal preferences (tastes, family traditions, milieu, willingness to move, exogenous events, etc.) and the interpretation of market signals (salaries, companies internal training opportunities, economic conjuncture, etc.). Adding to these factors the presence of asymmetric information (i.e. available job opportunities, the exact skills required, the skill definition), a slight skills

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mismatch is the very obvious outcome of such a system. As showed by several research projects1, in normal conditions the equilibrium is reached following some adjustments. Skills mismatch is not necessarily a negative phenomenon: employees develop skills during their working life, with some acquiring new skills through multiple diverse inputs, and these varied methods help to satisfy both the creativity required by society, and the development of employees on a personal and cultural level. Furthermore, academic research has faced skills mismatch for more than half a century now, and has traditionally treated it as an ordinary issue like many others in management literature.

Going back to the above definition, we can spot why today skills mismatch cannot be handled anymore as a predictable variable of the productive system: its disruptive effects deeply influence European economies and the cultural assumptions behind its definition are rapidly changing. In fact, to reach the equilibrium, the two parts of the sentence must rest on the assumption that naturally individuals will decide to develop skills in line with the needs of the job market (and those who don’t are nothing but an exception, i.e. following specific personal choices or external constrictions). Today this assumption cannot be easily made anymore, as the results of our research show2: the job market has changed and so have young people, who now are rarely motivated by career opportunities or wage increases, these being the outcome of a system based on the job-for-life and on the social recognition of the business person per se, regardless of the social impact.

sanne suggests an interesting parallel between companies and countries: workers in the early years of their corporate lives are similar to emerging countries, such as the BRIC nations; they are committed to hard work and willing to adapt their education and values to the necessities of production.

By contrast, workers who have already achieved a good position in companies are similar to the more affluent, Western countries. Here, priorities are given not to productivity or corporate goals, but to personal and cultural objectives.

In this light, a broader cultural approach proposes to overcome the skills mismatch by changing the fundamental structure of jobs. Professor Weststar4 calls for a “shift [of ] the focus, from a preoccupation with educational reform and the choices that individuals make regarding their educational participation, to the impact of workplace and job design [..] Educational systems should not be called upon to produce specific workers for specific industries, but to encourage the development of core competences, producing workers with the ability to learn and adapt, thus enabling them to satisfy the changing demands of their future roles. It is the workplaces and jobs themselves that should be reformed to better match the workforce.” (2009: 735). The approach of the European Commission is similar: the education system should “create citizens, not workers”.

The problem of skills mismatch should be approached from a European perspective, touching a range of areas from management and economics to political science.

The European labour market has been affected by significant cultural changes since the late ‘90s. Liberalisation and globalisation, accompanied by inequalities between public and private sector wages, have contributed to an extensive and unfavora-

ble use of short-term contracts, creating a gap between older generations and youth searching for a foothold in the job market.

Furthermore, globalisation has changed the structure of the European economy, shifting it from an industrial environment to a largely service-based economy: the former demands a relatively low level of skills which employees potentially use without variation for long periods, while the latter requires a high level of skills, often dynamic, requiring continuous development and scrutiny in order to remain competitive. Firms could once hire undergraduates and train them internally, or take on school leavers that demonstrated the ability to engage in straightforward tasks.

Today, they need a highly specialised worker, often requiring extensive and costly training. Accordingly, they search the job market for those rare individuals that are both highly trained yet unemployed. However, these firms face fierce competition in recruiting these candidates.

Young individuals aren’t as money minded as previous generations, and they increasingly demonstrate concern for the social and environmental impact of enterprises (the highly educated in particular). The economic crisis has also increased anti-capitalist sentiment and resentment for profit-oriented companies (see question 2.1 of the survey). Furthermore, young people perceive the organisational hierarchy as of less importance. They respect authority more on the basis of competence than hierarchical status. Technological disparities, greater equality in society, accompanied by a high number of interconnections and a lower immediate desire for money, have significantly shifted the bargaining power of companies. In this respect, young people yearn for a job they enjoy, one that offers them the opportunities and resources to develop desired skills, as opposed to the skills the companies need. Frequently, young people opt to study a topic or field they aspire to work within, caring little for the state and demands of the actual labour market3.

A wide range of experts have conducted analyses and delved deeper into this topic.

Professor Stéphane Garelli of HEC Lau-

1 See i.e. Sala, G., 2011. “Approaches to Skills Mismatch in the Labour Market: A Literature Review”. Sociología de la Salud, 48 (2, mayo-agosto): 1025-1045

2 For example, 82% showed very high willingness to obtain the skills for its ideal job, which has no guarantee to find a correspondent open position

3 Both the French newspaper Le Monde and the Swiss Le Temps published special issues on this topic from 2010 to 2012. Full references can be found in the report.

USING CULTURAL LENSES

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MAIN RESULTS OF THE TY SURVEY Young people increasingly look for a continuation of life and work: happiness, fun, passion, an extensive network, comfortable working conditions and freedom are highly desired. Respondents appear highly passionate about both self and social development.

Some tendencies are apparent: those more willing to achieve their ideal job are also more willing to move abroad and as well those who feel less mismatched for their current job; those feeling the most mismatched for the current job are less willing to move or to adapt. These results show that flexibility is the first tool to lowering the

mismatch, but this is not in opposition with the aspiration of getting the ideal job.

According to the survey, what counts the most for youngsters is the field of specialisation more than a specific role: under-30s prefer to be part of an industry they are passionate about, and are very flexible to move inside it. I have developed indexes of mismatch5, and these showed that respondents do not feel particularly mismatched regarding the current job (ic=0,61) and, to a less extent, regarding the ideal job (Ii=0,58). This is openly in contrast with the perceptions of the experts: here we find another proof of the cultural bias affecting skills mismatch.

Other results show a high level of adaptability among youngsters, and that several career’s barriers are related to the crisis, and we can conclude that the ‘lost’ generation is moreover mobile, adaptable and, in the long term, idealistic.

CONCLUSIONS: TAKE ACTIONS Applying the results of our research to the cultural scenario designed above, some policy implications follow.

For CEDEFOP6, European programmes should be better enforced by local schools and universities. With this idea in mind, the Commission with associations and think tanks can address directly these subjects throughout Europe. EU institutions should definitely develop a simpler language and procedures for obtaining grants and access to programmes.

A very good example is the EURES programme, which is currently being developed in the sub-project ‘My First EURES Job’. Moreover, the Commission is working on some projects to lower communication biases between job seekers and companies, one of them being the ‘Skills Passport’.

Addressing companies, experts suggest to: • •

Be more honest with candidates, and also put on the table the bad sides of daily tasks.

Shape more specifically the job ad-

4 Weststar, J, 2009. “Worker Control as a Facilitator in the Match between Education and Jobs”. British Journal of Industrial Relations.

47(4, December): 723–740

vertisements, pointing out the very specific competences candidates should have (i.e. instead of “good command of Office” write “able to merge tables and filter the results in Excel”).

• Try to spot transferrable skills.

• Develop internal programmes to leverage the soft skills and not taking for granted that candidates have them; this will help develop corporate identity as well.

• Ensure HR management is always at its best, since a recruiting mistake can be costly and dismissal is bad for someone’s morale.

According to CEDEFOP, companies should try to change how youth work, and make the job more dynamic and interactive: a static and depressing environment will not push employees to update their competences and be proactive, thus accelerating the skills obsolescence process and slowing the acquisition of demanded skills. At European level, long-term policies have to be shaped.

European institutions and civil society should open a discussion on the direction that the job market needs to take and which industrial policies should be enforced. The impression is that companies are now surviving without any policy recommendations, especially on SMEs or on an international level. Considering how the job market and young people have changed, a new approach is desirable: the new industrialisation process taking place today has to be harmonised with the university system, deciding how much these should adapt to the job market, specialising and innovating, and how much their general social scope should be guarded. Regarding industrial policy, if companies’ long-term perspectives do not include the development of the society in which they are embedded, their employees will eventually quit (and often, the first to quit are the trainees). To ignore this call for renovation will not reverse the trend and will not create, from scratch, skilled young workers. By contrast, it will lower job satisfaction and the productivity of companies, which are struggling to

attract the few talented people available and paying them way more than in other continents – which thus decreases productivity and innovation. Stating that we can produce everything at a global competitive price, having full employment and full job satisfaction, without being forced to abandon our unique welfare system or reshaping our cultural transmission system, is a mere illusion that the current economic situation has shamelessly revealed.

Universities in Europe have the prominent role of culture production and transmission, which is not directly related to most industrial job positions. As unemployment explodes and companies struggle to survive, universities seem to be one of the favorite targets, regardless of the long-term implications of a weakened university system for European society7.

Companies can attract talented people by showing how their daily job can improve society and the lives of others, as well as by offering candidates long-term prospects, not merely higher income.

Youngsters should change their approach to looking for a job as well. It is a smart idea to connect with industrial organisations and become better informed about the good sides, challenges and opportunities. Despite the tough economic climate, candidates should also create a ‘focused’ profile through carefully selected internships. Last but not least, entrepreneurship can be a great way to overcome low levels of occupational demand and to develop a unique profile.

Eventually, building on all the previous, the cultural gap can be solved by proposing a ‘project for life’ on applying for the job.

That means that youngsters should not view working opportunities in opposition to their everyday life, but should instead foresee how the next experience will fit in with their lives and where it will lead. Added motivation and continuous learning will significantly help employees to align their skills with the ones needed by the company and it will be possible to overcome the opposition between individual’s desires and the market needs.

5 Values between 0 (total mismatch) and 1 (perfect match). For full details please refer to the report.

6 The European Union research center for employment.

7 among the others, as our results show, students mobility is one of the strongest vehicles for the creation of a European identity

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ERASMUS

FOR ALL

SKILLS IMPROVEMENT AND

MOBILITY 12

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Towards a European Education and Efficient Labour Market

Last November, the European Commission unveiled a new proposition: ‘Erasmus for All’. This project, which aims to convert every mobility and training programme into a single one with double the budget, is awaiting its first reading at the European Parliament.

By Bénédicte Le Galliot

I. ERASMUS: 25 YEARS OF STUDENT AND PROFESSORS MOBILITY WHAT IS THE ERASMUS PROGRAMME? The Erasmus programme, named after the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, was created in 1987.

At first, it was mainly a way of enabling a new generation of Europeans to feel ‘comfortable’ everywhere in Europe, able to

speak fluently several languages and aware of Europe unity. Young Europeans would travel, meet, speak and mingle.

It also was a step towards the creation of a European universities network and towards improving education

and facilitating academic recognition.[1] However, it was more the fulfilment of a dream for a certain elite, rather than a mainstream phenomenon, due to its cost, the lack of information in Member States and other national barriers, such as diffi-

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culties concerning academic recognition.

But the number of participants has constantly increased every year since the start. From the launch of the programme until 2009/10, almost 2.3 million students have benefited from it[2], going abroad to study for an average stay of 6.4 months in 2009. It was also an instrument of the Barcelona process beyond the EU and later of Europe Higher Education area[3] which granted the introduction of a three-cycle degree system (bachelor, master, doctorate).

EFA would follow three types of actions to achieve its goals: mobility instruction, cooperation for innovation and good practices, and support for policy reform[7].

WHAT IS THE ERASMUS FOR ALL (EFA)?

The Commission argues that EFA will lead to more manpower mobility and adaptability. It is both a short and long-term investment. Working or unemployed adults can benefit from more training while students that study abroad can improve their employability. Europe would be more competitive with experienced students become higher skilled workers. Beyond the mere goal of raising awareness of the common future of Europe, mobility and training should improve growth and employment.

The budget would be much more significant with €19 billion allocated to ‘Erasmus for All’ (2014-2020) considering the €6.9 bn for Lifelong Learning programme[8] and €885 million for Youth in Action[9] for the 2007-2013 funding period.

‘Erasmus for All’ is now seen as part of the solution to the economic crisis and youth unemployment in the framework of Europe 2020 initiative towards smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Education is indeed now at the heart of this new European strategy, and particularly its flagship initiative ‘Youth on the move’[4], managing skills mismatches and relevancy, but above all mobility for youths. ‘Erasmus for All’ is helping to reach the objectives of Europe 2020 but also those of the renewed ‘Framework for European Cooperation in the Youth Field’ (2010-2018), to the sustainable development of third countries in the field of higher education and to developing the European dimension in sport.[5] Currently, EFA reaches much further than Erasmus. The name Erasmus was only kept for visibility reasons: it is well known in Europe and associated with European student mobility.

EFA would merge seven programmes in one with quite different objectives. The Lifelong Learning programme finances exchanges, study visits and networking at any age (youngsters and adults) and includes mobility programmes (Erasmus, Leonardo Da Vinci), while Youth in Action promotes youth ‘Europhilia’ and active European citizenship. Moreover, the EU has five other international cooperation programmes (including Erasmus mundus)[6].

II.THE NEED FOR CHANGE A TOOL OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

IMPROVING THE RESULTS There is still sometimes a lack of political involvement and the full use of European tools, such as the European qualifications framework (EQF), ECTS/ ECVET and Europass (the European CV), according to the 2012 joint report.

At present, one of the biggest failures of the student mobility programmes is the lack of participants with a vocational education. According to the 2012 joint report on the implementation of the strategic framework for the European in education and training, only 3% of them are beneficiaries compared to the 10 to 15% of higher education graduates. Its budget is also lower than the one for higher education[10].

1 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31987D0327:EN:HTML 2 http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus/doc/stat/0910/report.pdf 3 http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/CH_04_2011/EN/CH_04_2011-EN.PDF 8 http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/doc/legal_en.pdf 9 http://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth-in-action-programme/overview_en.htm 10 http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/doc/legal_en.pdf

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There are still not enough adults benefiting from learning experiences financed by the EU. EFA should simplify and make more efficient the management of the programme. It follows the previous efforts made notably at national level with a single coordinating body, the national agency.

According to a 2009 European Parliament study, financial cost was the most significant factor impeding Erasmus participation or studying abroad[11]. As a consequence, the EFA launched a European student loan guarantee that will complete national schemes often limited to studies in national universities[12]. Student mobility is still too low at 2.8% in 2007, but it is increasing and should reach 4% by 2020[13].

4 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference= IP/10/1124&format=HTML&aged=0&language 5 http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/doc/legal_en.pdf 6 http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/ 7 http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/doc/legal_en.pdf 11 http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus/doc/publ/parlreport_en.pdf 12 http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/ 13 http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/doc/impact1_en.pdf

EXPERTS

VIEW 15

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Drifting Apart?

Higher Education in the UK and the Rest of the EU

By Nathaniel Copsey

L

ast week the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, promised a referendum on EU membership to UK voters in 2017 if his Conservative party wins a majority in the next general election, which is due in May 2015. His landmark speech had been trailed across the media for almost a year and was keenly anticipated, particularly within his own party, for whom the issue of the UK’s continued membership of the EU is of most interest. Although the UK is a habitual ‘awkward partner’ within the EU, and has never managed to muster much enthusiasm for European integration, it is still, in my opinion, very unlikely to vote to actually leave the EU should a referendum be held in four years’ time.

Nonetheless, as the eurozone crisis progresses, it is clear that Britain and the rest of the EU are gradually drifting apart. Fixing the euro in the longer term will require much closer cooperation between eurozone members. The UK will not take part in this cooperation, and it fears being excluded from the real decision-making arena of the Union.

Paradoxically, the UK and the rest of the EU have never been closer or had as much in common. Well over half a million Britons live in other EU Member States and more than one million EU citizens live in the UK. More French citizens live in London than in Bordeaux, Nantes or Strasbourg. Half of our trade is with the rest of the EU. And British culture has become increasingly Europeanised over the past 40 years. Wine and coffee drinking have become commonplace and the quality of British cooking has, thankfully, improved beyond recognition.

A similar story may be told for UK higher education. On the one hand, no other Member State has such an internationalised university sector as the UK. Within my own department of politics at Aston University,

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British staff are in the minority, outnumbered by lecturers from Bosnia, Canada, Germany, Romania, Spain and the United States. This diversity is a source of pride for us, and would be mirrored in most British university departments. It is a badge of honour, a sign of our internationalism. UK universities lead the way in setting up international learned societies that are open to scholars from around the world, although international participation tends to be mainly from other Member States. Of course, it helps that English has become the lingua franca of contemporary scientific discourse.

The first and most serious of the changes to UK higher education is the shift away from scholarship and learning for its own sake towards the notion of the university as a provider of professional training. Of course, universities have a clear obligation to provide graduates with appropriate skills and minds that have been honed to think in a way that is practical as well as academic. Yet this is not their sole purpose. Nor, I would contend, should it be essential for all British research grant bids to spell out clearly how the research produced will contribute towards the health of the British economy. In any case, this notion of economic value is rooted in a false understanding of how the boundaries of human knowledge are expanded. What Donald Rumsfeld would term the ‘unknown unknowns’ form the true boundary for research – and these cannot be spelled out at the planning stage. Moreover, as the story of Teflon demonstrates, practical applications may often spring from the most unlikely places.

In terms of the lived experience of students and academics, the second area where the UK has now pulled away from the European mainstream is in its tuition fees policy. Nearly all English (not British, since

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have different policies) universities now charge £9,000 for one year of undergraduate study. This does not mean that English universities will be awash with cash – far from it. Rather, this move is the result of the decision of the present coalition to end public support for undergraduate study in any meaningful way. From now on, students will pay the full cost of their education themselves through loans repayable over many decades of a working life. On graduation, once living costs are factored in, students will owe some £60,000 or €72,000! And this is before studying for a Masters degree! What is even more extraordinary is that this move has at no point been endorsed by the electorate at the ballot box. A revolution indeed.

Tuition fees have cut us off from the continent for all but the very richest – or most daring – of students from the rest of the EU. ‘Come to the UK and acquire debts of €70,000’ is hardly a slogan to conjure with.

As someone who has tried to negotiate double or joint degrees with continental universities, it is very difficult to explain why we charge such high fees to our puzzled partners. It is even harder to see why continental students would choose to pay them, when they could study elsewhere, either for free, or for far less money. And in a system where fees cover 100% of teaching costs, Erasmus agreements are very difficult to justify. It is all very well to argue that the exchange without fees is reciprocal, but it is hard to see where resources to teach incoming students will come from if we receive not a single penny from the student, the British state or the EU to cover these costs.

In the longer term, the fourth factor that threatens to cut us off from the continent the most is our declining language skills.

The casual reader of this article on the con-

tinent might be tempted to ask if it were possible for the British to become even worse linguists than they already are. The answer is, unfortunately, yes. In 2004, the then Labour government decided to make foreign languages optional after the age of 14. Since languages are viewed as ‘hard’ subjects by pupils and schools keen to get the best GCSE and A-Level results, fewer and fewer teenagers are studying foreign languages. The numbers of 18-year-olds studying French has fallen by one third to 13,850 last year. For German, the figures are even worse: only 5,548 pupils took the language – a drop of 42% since 2000.

Taken collectively, the current trajectory of UK higher education policy threatens to pull one of the most Europeanised and international elements of British society away from the EU. This is primarily a source of deep concern to us in the UK. Yet, I would also argue that Britain’s drift away from the European mainstream is also bad news for the rest of the EU. UK higher education enjoys a reputation for quality, and Britain also punches above its weight in terms of the value that is placed on the research it produces. I would argue that these are European strengths as much as they are British strengths in a globalised world. As such, they are to be enjoyed and appreciated across the whole continent, not just in the UK. Moreover, I also believe that there is much to be said for a national system of higher education that is open to talents on the teaching and research staff – wherever they may come from – and not a closed shop that provides jobs for particular cliques, political families or nationalities.

The paradox of UK universities is that they are simultaneously the most and the least Europeanised in the whole EU. In a way, this mirrors much of the UK’s enga-

Dr Nathaniel Copsey Director of the Aston Centre for Europe Head of Politics and International Relations Co-Editor of the JCMS Annual Review Aston University, UK

gement with the EU, where integration works – as the former Irish Prime Minister Garret Fitzgerald would say – in practice, but not in theory. The risk for us is that we drift apart by accident. This is not an outcome that anybody wants. For that reason, the worrying trends that I have outlined here should be a source of concern for students, teachers and researchers not only in the UK, but across the whole EU.

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USA WINDOW 18

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A Comment on Entrepreneurship Education in Europe The USA Case

By Andrea Contigiani & Thomas Kosters TEACHING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL REVOLUTION Entrepreneurship is a vital force in modern market economies. It is a fundamental contributor to job creation and economic growth. It is the crucial process by which innovation happens. It is an important driver of social progress. It is the way through which individuals can realise their economic liberty and achieve a better life.

Entrepreneurship is not a new thing. The world has witnessed extraordinary entrepreneurs throughout history. Florence during the Middle Ages, England during the Industrial Revolution and the United States in the 20th Century – just to mention a few examples –all produced creative individuals striving to pursue their ga-

me-changing business ideas. But now it is different. Today we are experiencing an unparalleled growth of entrepreneurship all over the world. Kuratko (2005) talks about “an entrepreneurial revolution” that has been occurring over the past two decades.

Thus, entrepreneurship matters – today more than before. This is why societies around the world are seeking ways to bolster it. Besides providing an entrepreneur-friendly regulatory and financial environment, another way to boost entrepreneurship is simply teaching people what it is and how to do it.

Can entrepreneurship be taught? Many observers think so. Drucker (1985) states that “the entrepreneurial mystique has nothing to do with genes; it’s discipline, and like any discipline, it can be taught.” Kuratko (2005) agrees, adding that “the question

of whether entrepreneurship can be taught is obsolete”. The real question is how.

WHAT ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION ACTUALLY MEANS First of all, what is entrepreneurship education? Nowadays few people think teaching entrepreneurship is just teaching how to start a business, most agree it is actually about “creating or increasing entrepreneurial attitudes, spirit and culture” (Mwasalwiba, 2010). We agree with the latter opinion. We think entrepreneurship education has to be understood in broad terms. Using the definition of Martinez et al (2010), entrepreneurship education can be seen as the process of building knowledge and skills ‘about’ and ‘for’ entrepreneurship.

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Where does entrepreneurship education happen? Martinez et al (2010) provide a good overview. Entrepreneurship education can be formal – received through a formal education institution – or informal – i.e. offered by non-educational institutions, such as business organisations or government agencies. Formal education can occur at primary level, secondary level and tertiary level. Tertiary level educational institutions (universities) are today the most active environment where entrepreneurship is being taught.

University entrepreneurship education has two main areas: taught courses and practical support. First of all, universities offer entrepreneurship classes taught by academics or professionals. These courses generally have wide-ranging aims (Hytti and Kuopusjärvi, 2004). They can focus on awareness creation, train entrepreneurial skills, or teach how to “take responsibility for learning, career and life” (Bridge et al, 2009). Furthermore, universities may offer various forms of hands-on support to students willing to become entrepreneurs. Being an important complement to classes, support includes initiatives such as competitions, counselling and incubators.

THE US CASE As suggested by Wilson (2008), entrepreneurship has historically been a key driver of the American economy. The entrepreneurial mindset has always been central to American culture, thanks to the contributions of thinkers such as Francis Walker, Frank Knight and, above all, Joseph Schumpeter. Consequently, the idea of teaching entrepreneurship is all but new in the American educational system.

Katz (2003) provides an interesting investigation of the chronological development of US entrepreneurship education. Harvard University – then the workplace of Joseph Schumpeter – offered the first entrepreneurship course to its MBA students in 1947. Many institutions followed: New York University in 1953, the University of South Dakota in 1954, Stanford University in 1954 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958. Babson College

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offered an undergraduate entrepreneurship concentration in 1968, while the University of Southern California introduced its MBA entrepreneurship concentration in 1972. Entrepreneurship education keeps growing – in parallel with the contribution of entrepreneurship to the American economy – reaching the majority of the country. In 1991, 1060 postsecondary schools offer entrepreneurship courses (Salomon et al, 1994), while 57 undergraduate and 22 MBA programmes offer entrepreneurship concentrations (Robinson and Haynes, 1991). Katz (2003) suggested the industry is reaching maturity, and this intense growth might eventually slow down.

The opposite happened. According to Kuratko (2005), at the end of the century, US entrepreneurship education exploded, with more than 2200 entrepreneurship courses being offered at over 1600 institutions in the early 2000s. Moreover, the teaching of entrepreneurship had by then spread outside business schools and was also taking place in many other university departments. Nowadays, entrepreneurship teaching is an established component of American education.

At the same time, American universities have been pioneering other instruments to support entrepreneurship. This is often done through the creation of an entrepreneurship centre, an independent entity within the university where a number of services are offered to students willing to start new ventures. Today most universities are endowed with an entrepreneurship centre, which is typically founded by donations of successful alumni.

A typical initiative is the business plan competition, where students go through the real challenge of generating and presenting a business idea. Many business plan competitions are endowed with considerable resources. For example, the Rice University Business Plan Competition will offer prizes totalling 1.3 million USD in 2013 (Rice University, 2012).

Besides funding, visibility and experience, the benefit of well-organised business plan competitions is the feedback that students receive during the process.

Many universities offer direct forms of con-

sulting to students willing to start a business. Typically, students are selected based on their business ideas and then offered the possibility of interacting one-to-one with expert entrepreneurs. For example, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania has been offering its Entrepreneur-In-Residence programme since 2001, through which selected students are given the opportunity to receive an intense mentoring programme (Wharton Entrepreneurship, 2012). During the entire academic year, once a week they meet an established entrepreneur on a one-to-one basis, having the chance to discuss their specific challenges with practitioners who have gone through those same challenges successfully in the past.

Finally, many universities are currently making an even greater contribution to entrepreneurship by establishing full-service incubators. Pappano (2012) reports that university incubators are growing extraordinarily, making up a third of the total number of incubators in the US. University incubators are fundamental tools for young entrepreneurs: they offer physical resources, collaborative atmospheres, high visibility, networking opportunities and access to the guidance of entrepreneurship experts. A recent example is the Beehive Cooperative at MIT (MIT, 2012), which hosts over 40 student teams.

WHAT ABOUT EUROPE? While US universities started in the 1950s, in Europe entrepreneurship was not added to curricula before the 90s.

This half-century delay would imply that entrepreneurship education in European universities is still in its infancy. A survey prepared for the European Commission in 2008 reported that there were 42 entrepreneurship initiatives active at European universities (NIRAS et al, 2008).

Wilson (2008) provided a comprehensive view of the current state of entrepreneurship education in the European education system. The most striking aspect was the prevalence of a restrictive view of entrepreneurship: in Europe startups are seen

simply as small firms, while in the US they are seen as young, dynamic, innovative and growth-oriented firms. Clearly, this makes a big difference in all aspects of teaching.

Entrepreneurship struggles to find its location within the European university: typically there are no dedicated departments, independent centres or specialised faculty members. European institutions provide little help in building links between students willing to do entrepreneurship and the business community. European schools rarely provide counselling or incubator services to young entrepreneurs.

One may wonder whether this lack of supply is driven by lack of demand, but this does not seem to be the case. There is basically no evidence for the often cited assumption that Europeans are less entrepreneurially minded than their US counterparts. Recent data show that the US score is comparable to the scores of most European countries (Kelley et al, 2012). What these numbers suggest is that there are Europeans willing to become entrepreneurs, but they have difficulties in actually doing so. It seems that European institutions are not effectively providing an educational platform that would allow motivated by entrepreneurship to make such professional choice.

Of course, there are exceptions. In particular, the German-speaking world seems to be more active than the rest of Europe in offering entrepreneurship education.

For example, Technische Universität München (TUM) is strongly committed to “initiate the founding of growth-orientated startup companies” (Technische Universität München, 2012). It ranked first among German public universities for offering chances for students to become entrepreneurs (Schmude et al, 2011) and was awarded €2.7 million by the German Federal Ministry of Economy in 2011 to reinforce its entrepreneurship education.

Together with its entrepreneurship centre UnternehmerTUM, the university offers a wide range of support to founders, in the form of lectures and seminars, and access to incubators connected to campus, as well as employing seven startup coaches on business plan creation, financing and

patent application. Its department of industrial design actively advises students on corporate design and prototype creation.

Similarly to TUM, some other European universities are improving their entrepreneurship education, by offering more courses, establishing entrepreneurship centers and offering hands-on entrepreneurship support. These schools seem to be learning from their US counterparts, by creating a European version of the US entrepreneurship education model. However, while these institutions are on the right path, the impression is that a lot of work remains to be done.

GOING FORWARD Europe lags behind the US in offering entrepreneurship education to its citizens. Is this a real problem? In other words, does this really matter?

To understand this question, one should investigate the effect of entrepreneurship education on individuals. Academic research has made attempts to investigate this relation, but has been unable to offer clear conclusions so far. As suggested by Gorman et al (1997), research on the effect of entrepreneurship education was still in its infancy at the end of the past century. This first decade of the new millennium has seen a larger effort on this direction. However, Von Graevenitz et al (2010) state that the effects of entrepreneurship education are still poorly understood. Many agree this is due to the considerable challenges presented by the investigation of this issue.

First of all, it is difficult to find and assemble appropriate data. Moreover, there are significant methodological obstacles, which so far have not been faced properly.

At the same time, common sense suggests that entrepreneurship education matters.

While a cause and effect relationship is always hard to establish, European entrepreneurship data confirm the strong delay compared to the US. In fact, European startups perform worse than their American counterparts. No more than nine European firms have a market capitalisation larger than $1 billion and a life shorter than 10 years, while in the US such num-

bers are tenfold (Lebret, 2007). Moreover, many of the European success stories had connections with the US. A couple of notable examples include German software firm SAP, which was founded by former IBM employees, and the Swiss founders of Logitech who met at Stanford in 1976.

We believe that one relevant reason why European entrepreneurship struggles is the lack of a proper entrepreneurship education in the European university system. Much of the current debate has indicated that entrepreneurship education should have two main objectives: provide skills to embark on an entrepreneurial path and reinforce the motivation to be willing to become entrepreneurs. We think that entrepreneurship education should certainly provide the skills necessary for such a career.

However, it should not necessarily convince people to make such a life choice. Rather, it should allow people to understand whether entrepreneurship is a feasible path for them. In other words, it should help them to clarify their perception of their own entrepreneurial inclination and intentions.

Europe has to find a way to foster its entrepreneurship, especially now during the worst economic crisis since the creation of the EU. Entrepreneurship could be a good push towards the way out. Policy makers – in Brussels and around Europe – have to make a serious attempt to help those Europeans who are willing to become entrepreneurs. Among the many steps to be taken, promoting the creation of an education system that affords more space to entrepreneurship could be a useful and viable option. The US experience can be useful to Europe. While, obviously, not all of its characteristics can be imported – because of the fundamental role that culture plays in economic interaction – many initiatives can be adapted to the European environment at little cost. We believe that such possibilities should be carefully examined.

Ultimately, strengthening European entrepreneurship education seems to be a sensible and generous long-term investment.

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HOT

SPOT THE BALKANS

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The Story Of Croatia The Bologna Process and Student Mobility

By Marko Kovacic Birds have wings; they’re free; they can fly where they want when they want.

They have the kind of mobility many people envy. (Roger Tory Peterson) Since the beginning of the world people have been envying birds. We are fascinated by their ability to move very easily from one place to another without worrying about borders, cultures and other factors. With this analogy in mind, I turn my thoughts to student mobility in Europe, and the experience of Croatia in particular. I will aim to outline the change of the Croatian higher education system in the context of the Bologna Process and analyse the motivation of Croatian students to move abroad with all advantages and obstacles related to it. In order to do this, I first analysed Erasmus reports by the European Commission, the government of Croatia and a CSO focused on higher education in Croatia and combined it with four interviews with students that

participated in the Erasmus programme.

I will first describe very briefly the Croatian higher education system in order to give an introduction on the possibility for students to carry out part of their studies abroad.

The challenges of implementing the Bologna Process in Croatia will be presented as well. In addition, I will demonstrate a general overview of Croatian students stating their main values, socialisation process and their attitudes towards mobility. I will then analyse Croatian students’ mobility, highlighting the main motivations, the Erasmus experiences of Croatian students and the positive aspects and obstacles of this part of the Life-long Learning programme.

THE CROATIAN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM AND ITS CHANGE Croatia has a binary higher education sys-

tem, meaning that prospective students can choose between two types of higher education studies: university studies consisting of academic programmes that are conducted solely at universities and professional studies consisting of professional programmes conducted at polytechnics or colleges of applied sciences (Study in Croatia, 2010). There are seven universities in Croatia, the University of Zagreb being the oldest (founded in 1669) and the most developed one. Until 2001, the Croatian higher education system followed the German tradition but this has changed to be more in line with the Anglo-Saxon model.

In 2001 Croatia entered the Bologna Process and all requirements were fulfilled in 2005 when the first generation of the ‘Bologna students’ enrolled in undergraduate programmes. The main goal of the Bologna Process is to establish a comparable and coherent system of higher education in Europe with special attention put

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on student mobility (European Higher Education Area). Erasmus, as one of four agendas of Lifelong Learning programme, is “the European Union flagship mobility programme” (Mohoric, 2011). The first Croatian universities received the Erasmus chapter in 2009 after Croatian Agency for Mobility and EU Programmes signed a contract with the European Commission allowing Croatian universities to join the Erasmus University Chapter. The reason why Croatian universities waited for eight years to join the Erasmus programme was the inability of the Croatian government to implement all requirements and criteria for joining Erasmus. According to the Croatian government in 2005, Croatia completely fulfilled Bologna Process criteria (MSES, 2011) but those reforms had not been positively evaluated either by civil society actors, academics and students, or in the OECD’s review of tertiary education (Mohoric, 2011). Nevertheless, after numerous measures, action plans and papers8, in the academic year 2009/2010, the first Croatian students got the opportunity to study abroad within the Erasmus programme.

CROATIAN STUDENTS AND INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY In the winter semester of the 2010/2011 academic year, a total of 148,747 students enrolled in institutions of higher education.

(Croatian Bureau of Statistics, 2012: 12).

The sociological picture of Croatian students is pretty much similar to the situation in Western Europe. At the University of Zagreb, three quarters of students come from an urban environment and almost three fifths from families where both parents or at least one have a university degree. These trends, based on the identical results of this and other research, can be interpreted as indicators of continuous social self-reproduction of higher social classes (Ilišin, 2008: 240). Thus the results for the University of Split (the second biggest university in Croatia) are the same, as stated in Malenica, 2012. There is a high correlation between socio-economic status and student status.

Croatian students are mostly liberal with a

8 For the extensive information of the Croatian way of implementing Erasmus criteria check paper by Melina Mohoric (2011) “The Erasmus Programme and EU Leverage on Higher Education Reforms in Croatia“.

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strong tendency towards expressive values.

Most students agree that economic and personal problems, administrative barriers, an unfavourable political situation and corruption stand in the way of their ambitions.

When it comes to attitudes towards international mobility, 24% of students want to spend some part of their education abroad (Ilišin, Potočnik, 2008). Reasons for this desire include the wish to learn a foreign language and to meet new friends from abroad. According to UNESCO, the outbound mobility ratio for Croatia is 4.93%9, but despite the high number of students studying abroad their complete programme, in the academic year 2009/2010 only 2% were supported by Erasmus and similar initiatives (IDE, 2012).

While the student mobility growth rate between 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 for Croatia was more than 7%, this figure in comparison with other countries is still significantly low. Students state that the lack of information is the main factor of their immobility. Information comes from brochures that do not contain relevant data on student life in a foreign country nor practical information. Moreover, ECTS recognition problems can result in students ‘losing’ a year at their home university due to bureaucratic difficulties.

Students, however, that took part in the Erasmus initiative emphasise that is an unforgettable part of life. They believe that this kind of student mobility was one of the most useful experiences in their studies.

Improving a foreign language and meeting new people from all over the Europe were the biggest benefits of their stay in a foreign country. Hence, they believe that those students with some international experience will more easily find a job and/or have an advantage when enrolling for masters and PhDs abroad. Nevertheless, they warn of compatibility problems with Croatian programmes at universities and directives of the European Commission. Some interviewed students had problems with marks and ECTS recognition. Even though universities have fulfilled all the formal requirements, a high level of autonomy in university departments causes problem for students.

9 Ratio between students enrolled in Croatian universities versus universities outside Croatia. This information is not about studens’ mobility but enrollement in the complete BA, MA of PhD programs.

One student shared that he passed the same class when he was on Erasmus but a professor, despite the decision of the university, decided not to recognise it. This example (and it is not an exception) shows that faculties often don’t understand the importance of mobility and the willingness to participate in contemporary European trends.

Other problems were also indicated: visa/ residence permit issues, problems with communication with Erasmus coordinators at universities and inadequate preparation by the university for ongoing students.

In summary, the Bologna Process has brought some significant changes to the Croatian higher education system in terms of mobility. For the first time, it opened up Europe to Croatian students who can now experience international mobility more easily than before. Croatian students are now starting to show greater interest in the subject of students’ mobility, although Croatian universities still did not completely accept all Bologna Process requirements.

In reality, problems remain with such basic aspects as ECTS recognition. Such potential administrative obstacles and the lack of information among students on the Lifelong Learning programme are the key reasons why Croatian students are immobile.

In order to increase student mobility, two pivotal steps can be taken: educate students on the advantages of international mobility in a way that is appropriate to them and with information relevant to them; inform professors that without student mobility there is no European Higher Education Area, nor international cooperation between universities that is crucial to university rankings. Croatian government, civil society and the European Commission have to cooperate together in order to evaluate the Erasmus programme in Croatia, and on the basis of that evaluation take relevant steps to enable students make the best of what Europe has to offer.

Financing Of Higher Education In Croatia

By Nikola Baketa

I

will focus on the different aspects of financing of higher education in Croatia and include a short introduction into the Croatian system to give a sense of its size.

Furthermore, I will assess the main trends in public expenditure on tertiary education, tuition fees, student numbers, subsidies and sources of funding. Also, certain problems related to these mechanisms will be discussed. Finally, I will give a short overview of students’ reaction (protests and blockade of faculties) on changes in financing of higher education over the past 20 years.

Croatia joined the Bologna Process in 2001 when the declaration was signed by the Croatian minister of science and education. Croatia was now obliged to reform its higher education system according to the Bologna Declaration guidelines for up to 2010. After joining the Bologna Process a new higher education law was introduced in 2003 and the first academic programmes started in 2005. According to the Agency for Science and Higher Education, Croatia has currently seven public universities, three private universities, 67 faculties and academies, two private polytechnics, 13 public polytechnics, 27 private colleges and three public colleges. At the seven public universities there are 351 undergraduate programmes, 45 integrated undergraduate and graduate programmes, 368 graduate programmes, 174 postgraduate specialist programmes and 102 postgraduate university (doctoral) study programmes. Closely related, Croatia has established heterogeneous higher education system. There are two different two-tier programmes – 3+2 and 4+1.

Also, there are integrated undergraduate

and graduate programmes. (AZVO, 2012) Financing of higher education in Croatia can be divided into public and private according to the sources of finances. Furthermore, public financing can be divided into direct and indirect financing (depending on the way in which finances are distributed). The former represents public funding of institutions which provides academic and other services for students (accommodation, food, sport, etc.). The latter is related to the tuition fees, grants, loans and similar mechanisms and its outcome should be an increase in the disposable income of students. (Budak et al., 2010).

Annual public expenditure on tertiary education as a percentage of GDP in Croatia was highest in 2008 when it reached 0.94%, according to Eurydice (2012). In the same year private expenditure was 0.32%. Also, the EU average of public expenditure was 1.15% and the figure for Croatia was higher than that for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia and UK. However, due to the economic crisis certain cuts were made in the following years and in 2010 the figure for Croatia declined to 0.73% (EEU, 2012), the lowest public expenditure since 1990s. On the other hand, the number of students has increased constantly over the past 20 years. There were 70,781 students enrolled in 1990 and 148,747 in 2010. As it is possible to see, the highest variation of public expenditure on tertiary education as a percentage of GDP was around 0.2% and the number of students increased by more than 100%. The explanation discrepancy lies with tuition fees.

The universities can now acquire finan-

cing from other sources and one of those sources is tuition fees. The great expansion in the number of students started in 1994 when the law on higher education allowed universities to enrol self-financing students (private expenditure for HE). Dolenec (2010) points out that in 1993/1994 11.8% of students financed their own education: by 2004/2005 this percentage had increased to 56.7%, and according to Croatian Bureau of Statistics (2012) in 2010/2011 slightly more than 50% of students financed education by themselves. Also, tuition fees were raised by 40% between 1994 and 2008.

The highest growth of enrolled students was achieved in social and human sciences since these subjects require less investment in technological equipment. This led to certain problems relating to the quality of education – e.g. capacity problems at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, higher student-teacher ratios and the overloading of labour market with certain professions. Today the state finances tuition fees for all full-time students enrolled in the first year of higher education; they can retain this funding in subsequent years by achieving 55 ECTS credits during the current academic year.

As well as financing academic institutions, the state finances other institutions and through them provides subsidies for accommodation, public transport and food, health insurance and tax relief for a certain number of students. All full-time students (with subsidised tuition fees and self-financing tuition fees) are eligible for subsidies for accommodation and food, health insurance, student job and tax relief. On the other hand, accommodation in

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dormitories is reserved only for successful students or students from certain social categories – they have to pay a monthly fee for this accommodation. Only 8.6% of students live in dormitories (Dolenec 2010).

Clearly, this kind of state assistance greatly helps improve student standards. However, these measures can have certain negative effects on higher education. According to Budak et al. (2010), it is possible to abuse these provisions – selling/transferring food subsidises or accommodation in dormitories. Furthermore, offering students all these provisions could demotivate them and prolong the time they require to finish their education. Definitely there are possible solutions which can be introduced in order to prevent these negative effects such as loans, grants and scholarships.

However, these kinds of mechanisms (different ways of money distribution) are underdeveloped or they are not available to a wide range of students. According to different authors and surveys (Budak et al., 2010; Cvitan et al., 2011; EEU, 2012) 13-28% of students receive some kind of scholarship (from the state, local government, private enterprises and international organisations). The lowest percentage is related to public scholarships and the highest for all sources together. Public scholarships are around €100 per month and usually cover only minor part of student expenses. Regarding student loans, the situation is even more problematic.

There are few programmes which enhance students to take loans for their education and those are launched by local authorities (only a few). Generally there are no differences between the interest rates for ordinary citizens and students. The result of the underdeveloped programmes regarding student loans is visible if we take into account that only 3% of students use them as a source of funding (Cvitan et al., 2011).

The continuous growth of tuition fees, the larger share of self-financing students and the absence of additional investments in higher education contribute to the general dissatisfaction among students.

Student protests started in 2008 and cul-

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minated in 2009 when students occupied several faculties and blockaded all lecture theatres. According to the media, around 20 faculties at the University of Zagreb, and several faculties at the universities in Rijeka, Split, Zadar, Osijek and Pula, as well as several polytechnics, were blockaded. (Letica, 2009) Most of the protesters were studying human and social sciences. This can be explained by previously presented data regarding extreme growth of self-financing students in this area.

Their main goal was to fight against the commercialisation of higher education and liberal capitalism. The articulation of their main goal was at the same time simple and complex: ‘publicly funded higher education for all students’. Also, the Bologna Process was highlighted as one of the causes since it promotes the neoliberal logic in which knowledge is only one of the goods in the global market and thus the market dictates access to education. (Kurelic, 2011) Some of their requests were accepted and today, as I mentioned, the state finances tuition fees for all full-time students enrolled in the first year of higher education. However, tuition fees are only a small part of student expenses and it is questionable if their abolition would improve access to higher education.

If we take into account previously presented data it is possible to see that there are opportunities to improve the financing of higher education and student standards through scholarships, loans, grants and other subsidies. Private funding should move from students and their families towards other private sources. Public funding accounts for 70% of university budgets while the remaining 30% comes from their own sources and activities (tuition fees, projects, publishing activities, etc.).

Of this 30%, tuition fees make up 38%.

(Dolenec, 2010) Since the law on higher education allows for a wide range of possible market activities through which universities are able to raise funding, it is necessary to facilitate them. Also, for Croatian higher education it is necessary to increase annual public expenditure on tertiary education as a percentage of GDP and in that

respect move closer to the EU average.

CHANGING

DIMENSIONS

OF HIGHER EDUCATION

GOVERNANCE

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Ambiguity of Higher Education Policy Making In Bosnia And Herzegovina

This essay addresses the higher education policy-making process in Bosnia and Herzegovina in light of the higher education reform that has been implemented in the country for more than a decade. The policy making in higher education in Bosnia and Herzegovina is analysed through the most common models of the policy process: phase, stream and round models. The essay aims to explain specificities of the policy process and to analyse why the implementation of adopted public policies in a given field is insufficient. The analysis gives a brief overview of the higher education reform status and focuses on the problems in the formulation and implementation of the Higher Education Framework Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

By Nina Brankovic Master in Public Policy, Kings College London PhD Candidate in Higher Education and Development of Western Balkan, Political Science Faculty, University of Zagreb

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The reform of Higher Education System in Bosnia and Herzegovina began over a decade ago. Through its Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance programme, the EU pledged €1.5 million (USD $1.9 million) to support the development of an efficient and effective higher education system in Bosnia-Herzegovina in line with the EU standards. In its initial stage the reform process was focused on adoption of the new legislation10.

Though the development of new legislation was a very important goal for the Council of Europe and that a number of higher education and government officials intensively worked on its development, the process took six years and the law on higher education was adopted by Parliamentary assembly in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2007.

Furthermore, given the decentralised education system in Bosnia and Herzegovina11 the developed legislation is just a framework law that provides more guidance than rules for higher education. Thus, while the law has been formally adopted, implementation of legislation reform is still at an early phase12. Some of the most relevant characteristics related to the adoption process of the framework law on higher education in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be summarised:

This essay will try to place the above issues in the framework of different policy process models: stream, phase and round model, in order to shine more light on higher education policy making in Bosnia and Herzegovina and explain which of the most common models fits best the situation in the country.

Public policy is described as “the collecting and analysing of information and the formulation of advice regarding the policy to be followed” (Butler 1991, pp.43-4) and includes certain phases: definition of the problem, search for information, formula-

tion of policy options, selection of options and policy adoption as “decisions taking about the contents of a policy” (Butler 1991, pp43-4). During the implementation process the chosen tools are applied: “decision making is a sequence of steps which, if followed, should lead to the best solution” (Ibid) but the distinction between problems and solutions is blurred in some cases.

The phase model is a most common approach, both in science (Anderson,1979) and in policy practice13. The phase model implies certain stages, characterised by the specificities and participants involved.

(Teisman, pp 938), and distinguishes stages between policy formulation, adoption and implementation. In Bosnia and Herzegovina officials in higher education departments within 12 ministries of education are actors involved in policy formulation. The parliament is responsible for policy adoption and agencies, while different departments implement the policy in practice.

However, even in less complex structures than Bosnia and Herzegovina, public policy making is rarely a straightforward process with precisely separated phases. It is a more dynamic and constant interaction of those involved in different phases, where phases are usually overlapping and the participation of actors is not strictly divided into different phases, while some decisions are made within each stage and they can change the direction of the policy during the whole process. As such, the phase model needs more flexibility and complexity to explain the higher education policy making process in Bosnia and Herzegovina – which leads us to apply stream model to Bosnia and Herzegovina case.

The stream model provides more flexibility in the participation of different actors within the policy process. It implies the combination of three separate streams (Kingdon 1984) where one stream consists of problems, another of policies and a third consists of politics/participants. “While there are indeed different processes, they do not necessarily follow one another though time in any regular pattern” (Kingdon 1984, p.83). Actors with solutions in policy

streaming are searching for political commitments while politicians are looking for solutions and problems with which they can gain voters support. The temporal sequence of the phase model is replaced by the postulate of simultaneousness (Koppenjan 1993, p.26) as three streams exist at the same time and the linkage momentum between them is defined as a “policy window” (Kingdon 1984,p.174; Anglund 1999) when a major policy change is likely to occur.

The process of creating and adopting the Bosnia and Herzegovina Higher Education Law, involved intensive negotiations and discussions between education ministries. In order to have a fully operational Framework Higher Education Law, it was agreed that the implementation phase would consist of harmonising the entity/ cantonal higher education laws with the state one, which some education ministries haven’t done yet. The harmonisation of legislation is still in the discussion phase so one may conclude that the decision-making process has not been finalised by adoption of the framework law and that if the decision makers opened the policy window(s) they might open it on different sides. It seems that interaction of participants during the policy-making process is constant, while the decision-making process does not end with the adoption of the legislation but the whole policy process is a platform for shaping outcomes of the adopted framework law through different decision-making rounds within the higher education reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The assumption is, as the round model explains, that solutions and problems are relevant to a policy process, insofar as they are presented by an actor during the process (Scharpf, Reissert and Snabel 1978; Teisman 1998). The problems and policies are not linked to a single actor (as in a phase model) and decision making is not placed in one policy window moment (as in a stream model) but many actors are part of the decision-making process in different phases in a policy making so the round model can be seen as an “interactive approach” (Scharpf, 1997) of various actors in various

10 Reform pillars included three reform pillars: adoption of the new legislation, financial system reform and changes of the governance of the higher education institutions.

11 Bosnia and Herzegovina has a highly complex structure and according to the constitution the jurisdiction in most of policy areas is

decentralised and divided between one entity, one district and ten cantons. This is also reflected in education where the state level -represented by the department for education within the Ministry of Civil Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina- has just a coordinating role while the Ministry of education and culture of Republic of Srpska, ten

ministries of education within the cantons of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and department for education within the government of Brčko District have developing and executive jurisdiction in education policy areas.

12 Not all Laws on Higher Education are harmonised with the

• •

The adoption was a time-consuming process.

There is a lack of implementation of the higher education framework law in Bosnia and Herzegovina even though the stakeholders’ supported its adoption.

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phases. Even rounds have their own characteristics; they exist side by side and open more space for the participation of different actors as “all participants can score points in each round, in terms of a leading definition of the problem and the (preferred) solution” (Teisman, pp 938). Each new round can change the direction of the match, and new decisions can appear which was apparent in formulation of the higher education framework law in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A fitting overall concept of the law adoption was the joint interest (Teisman, 1992, p.91-2) so when the law formulation reached the acceptable level (of ambiguity), the education ministries supported its adoption. It might be concluded that round model explains the policy-making process in Bosnia and Herzegovina more precisely then the other two models. The whole process included participation of different stakeholders in different phases and those phases have been overlapping with decision making taking place in almost all of them.

However, consultations between participants from different rounds, in which they have reached certain joint decision as triggers for the beginning of the next round, were pretty rare in the round model of Bosnia and Herzegovina as most of the education ministries may perceive further development of the state law as jeopardising their own autonomy14. Ownership of the higher education law was lacking and the triggers for the next round were mostly the requests of international community.

Considering that the formulation of the law included an extensive negotiation process and the law was finally adopted when the EU Stabilisation and Association Agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina was conditioned by adoption of this law, it is questionable “whether and how actors have managed to combine perceptions to such an extent that they are willing to support a joint solution” (Termeer 1993, p44,48-51) as described in a round model. It is questionable if and how the policy problem has been defined and which actors defined the problem at the first stage.

The round model implies that joint inte-

framework law on Higher Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina 13 It is frequently used by international agents in developing countries. For example: OECD methodology “Sigma 12 phases” used as a tool for public officials capacity building in public policy making in a number of transitional countries.

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rest will be dominant factor in the definition of the problem but also in the formulation of the policy as “(policy) should respond to the objectives of all parties involved”. In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, adoption of the framework law was strongly supported if not imposed by the international actors who paid a linking role between rounds.

It may be concluded that policy making in higher education area in Bosnia and Herzegovina responds more to the round model of the public policy process. The interaction between actors in different rounds with decision making happening in most of those rounds is the reality of the education policy making of the country. However, initiative for interaction within rounds between actors is lacking and this slows the whole process down. Lack of ownership may be defined as one of the dominating factors that colours the adoption of the state law. The international community as another dominating factor played a crucial role in overall process of adopting the law. Further analyses of these two factors and in-depth elaboration of higher education policy making in Bosnia and Herzegovina would be needed to help us better understand why policy making in this country is such a consuming process with non-implementable results.

14 Ministries of education protect the autonomy of their education policy areas under the proclamation of the ethnic interest protection and they obstruct and delay adoption of the Higher Education Law. The adoption of the Higher Education Law took a while and failed in parliament a number of times because Bosnian Croat officials

claimed that the bill violated their national interests by creating a Bosnia-wide authority for Higher Education, which they feared would endanger the Croat university at Mostar (Bayrasli 2004).

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