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Final Policy Paper
For the project Legislating
for Higher Education in some Balkan countries,
By Dimka Guicheva-Gocheva,
An International Policy Fellow of the
Center for Policy Studies,
Open Society Institute, Budapest,
Hungary
The draft proposals for new Academic
degrees and titles Act –
legislative exercises for their own
sake or urgent need?
(a comparative analysis of the three
draft proposals, prepared by 1) Georgi Panev; 2) Petko Ganchev-Elka
Anastasova-Lyutvi Mestan; 3) Alexander Panayotov, submitted and
discussed in the Parliamentary Commission for education and culture
in the National Assembly of Republic Bulgaria)
Addressees:
The Parliamentary Commission for
education and culture
The Rectors’
Council of the universities and the high schools in Bulgaria
The Ministry of Education and Science
The desperate
necessity of such legislative initiative
This
undertaking is more than necessary. Moreover, it is of fatal
importance for the future of Bulgaria. All of us are well acquainted
with the dismay data for the demographic tendencies and the
processes, evolving in the so-called “human capital” of
Bulgaria. During the past 12-13 years enormous amount of compatriots
with degrees from different academic specialities and specialized
vocative high schools have left the country. One eighth of its
population have emigrated. Several reports, issued by the World Bank
experts estimate that 2/3 of all Bulgarians, who have possessed
academic degrees now are outside the country. According to the sober
prognoses, given the speed of these emigration and demographic
tendencies, around 2050 the population of Bulgaria will be 2,5 times
smaller than now, whereas countries like Britain and France (if the
present tendencies continue to evolve) will be 2,5 times bigger.
Even more
disturbing is the fact, that in Bulgaria, like in many other CEE
countries the majority of the persons, who have graduated from
universities, institutes and colleges, are in an “internal
migration”. They have remained in the country, but they earn
their living with jobs, which do not correspond to their
qualification from the tertiary learning.
Therefore, the
three draft proposals for a new Academic degrees and titles act are
more than welcome. Sincerely speaking, however, they are coming even
too late. That’s why the legislative efforts in this direction
should be speeded and enforced. It is not an exaggeration to claim,
that Bulgaria loses its human and academic potential. It is a
question of an elementary policy consideration to admit, that the
settlement of the problem “development of the academic
potential” will be a favourable counter-balance against the
present troubling tendencies.
The present legislative
regulation and the fiasco of the alternative legislative proposals
The present Law for the
scientific titles and scientific degrees is promoted in 1972
(published in Official Gazette in No 36 on the 9th of May
1972). It is nowadays more than inadequate. It does correspond
neither to the actual social reality, nor to the strategic priorities
for the development of the country. With such a legislative document
it is not realistic to expect that the disastrous processes in the
Bulgarian academic resources will be stopped.
To begin with, let’s mention
again and again the shameful fact that in the present Law, there are
juridical jewels as, for example:
Article 5 (1): The
dissertation papers should be directed to the solving of scientific
or applied scientific problems, connected with the socialist
development of the country…
Article 16 (1): The
habilitation papers () and the other researches and creative
achievements, according to art. 10 and 15 should be directed to the
solving of scientific or applied scientific problems, connected with
the socialist development of the country…
If we ask what the real causes for
the remainder of such phrases in the LSTSD despite the numerous
corrections, deletions of texts and additions of new articles in the
law, the frank answers will admit several reasons:
These phrases are not
deleted, because if they had been deleted, it should become
necessary to insert other ‘mission-statements’, other
‘purpose-definitions’, answering to the question: “To
what should be directed the Doctoral theses, the Professors’
and the Dozents’ habilitations, the researches and the
scholarly studies, the artistic work in the academies for the arts?”
The academic community in Bulgaria since the beginning of the
transition period has not bothered itself with such and similar
questions. It was, is and probably it will continue to be one of
the most hectic politicized professional communities, which does
not care at all for its immanent mission, for the task of its
institutional building and for the necessity of its own reforming.
The educational
legislation, its theory and history is a specific part in the
juridical sciences. Probably, because of its peculiarity and
limited sphere of application (compared with the scope of the
practical relevance of the other branches of the juridical
sciences), is not taught as an academic discipline anywhere. This
makes the solution of these matters in a favourable way dependant on
very rare (and very unlikely for Bulgaria) coincidence of good
circumstances. In this connection I cannot uphold the bitter remark,
that the profile of the academic-juridical community is reflected in
the present LSTSD. The members of this community besides their
academic work are engaged privately in all kind of advocates’
and/or consultants’ activities for private enterprises. The
fruits of this prolonged neglect of the educational legislation and
especially of the act, regulating the development of the academic
potential and the academic resources of the country are to be seen.
The present Law and the
collapse of some alternative initiatives, is the result of the
extremely conservative (and sometimes hostile) attitude of the
highest level of the academic community to all kinds of attempts to
change the status quo. Even the most innocent steps in the
direction of change are swept and the concrete remains. The highest
officials in the most influential academic institutions, as the
Presidium of the Bulgarian Academy for Sciences and the Academic
Council of the Sofia University opposed in 2000 the most significant
and the most radical legislative initiative – the draft
proposal, submitted by Georgi Panev. They did it without any
detailed motivation and proposing only one pseudo-argument from the
instruments of the trickiest sophisms. Whatever change of the
present regulation WILL lead to negative results in the future. This
sophistical pseudo-argument – argumentum ex futuro - from
a policy point of view is devastating, not to speak about its
logical feebleness. It claims for hypothetical future
threatens and loses, and at the same time it neglects the extremely
unfavourable tendencies, that already evolve in the past dozen of
years – the drastic reduction of the academic resources and
the human potential of our country.
As only and
solely explanation for these sad processes the academic nobility
points out the law level of the salaries, the insufficient payment,
the bad working conditions and lack of IT equipment. But isn’t
it imposing of the responsibilities of the universities as
institutions on the parliament and the government (in all political
configurations we have had so far in the transition period). The
indulgent self-vindication, that the “state does not care at
all for the education and the scientific researches” is always
to the fore. It is true, that the salaries for the academic and the
teachers’ work are insufficient and that the part of the
budget, allocated for the secondary and the tertiary education, and
for the scientific work, is small. It is undeniable that the majority
retired Bulgarian academics and scholars lead a miserable existence
after decades of noble work. Their life now is not the deserved otium
cum dignitate, which enjoy their colleagues in the more developed
countries.
However, when all these sad and undeniable facts are inserted into
the consideration of the educational-legislative initiatives, they
are usually used as a trick for the changing of subject. This
replaces entirely the topic of the debate. The aim of this changing
of the subject is to keep the present status ad infinitum. In this
respect the analogies with the efforts to reform the judiciary system
are correct. It might be feared, that the fight against all
substantial undertakings for the reforming and the modernization of
the academic legislation will even stronger, more illogical and
ungrounded than the resistance, exercised by the defenders of the
present-day judiciary system in Bulgaria.
The most important lessons from
the developments so far and the
consensus ideas in the experts’
community
I have
allowed myself to engage the attention of the possible readers of
this paper with all these circumstances, because the success or the
failure of all new legislative initiatives for an alteration of the
procedure mechanisms for the promotions in academic collegium, will
have to take them into consideration. If the legislator is bound to
introduce really a modern, European and favourable academic
legislation, which eventually to bring to an end the shameful
Stalinist-socialist heritage, the legislator will have to take into
account also the following:
The presence of two important
players in the process of the academic reform,
who have great media and symbolic influence and who occupy
incompatible positions. On the one side stands the
negative-conservative attitude of the academic notabiles,
represented mainly by the Academic council of the SU and the
Presidium of BAS. On the other side is the reformative experts’
community, represented mainly by
the Chair of the Rectors’ council and eminent Bulgarian
scholars – professors in sociology and philosophy of
education, some of the former ministers and deputy ministers of
education, and some individually working experts and persons,
supported by influential NGO-s, engaged with projects for the
development of the higher education.
In
the discussions, which have continued already for 3 three years
(since the beginning of 2000) the defenders of the status quo
have not mentioned a single argument from the history of the
university education at home and all over the world, and about the
contemporary European and global tendencies, whereas the experts’
community proposes this kind of arguments.
For the time being in vain.
The experts community is lead
by several common, consensus convictions:
In the first period of its
existence (since the establishment of the High School and especially
in the period 1904-1948) the Bulgarian higher education had had an
indisputable European face with an Anglo-Saxon profile and with some
traces of the German model of the professorship.
What is called in the typologies “a university from the type,
created by cardinal Newman”, had been the ideal of the
academic collegium in our country. That’s why the mandates of
the chairs of the departments, of the deans of the faculties, and of
the rector of the SU had lasted only for a year. The SU had adhered
to the rotational principle: all habillitated persons had become in
turn in every department; all departments in turn had delegated the
dean for one year in each faculty; all faculties in turn had
delegated the rector of the SU. The different faculties had had
different rulebooks and different regulation – e.g. for the
doctoral theses and the habilitation procedures. Since 1928 had
existed only one degree – Doctor of the SU. That’s why
the SU had resembled very much to a federation of independent
faculties, as the majority of the Anglo-American universities (but
without a board of trustees). That’s why in 1938, when the SU
celebrated its 50-th anniversary, the Oxford university had sent to
our university as presents the academic insignia (the rector’s
rod and the necklaces of the rector and members of the Academic
council). These presents had been received not from elsewhere else
but from the Oxford University, because in those days the
Bulgarian higher education had been more autonomous, modern and
dynamic than the education in other European countries.
The
experts’ community keeps on repeating again and again, that
the present structures, which lead the procedures for the
obtaining of the Doctors’ degrees and the habilitation
procedures, are entirely a Soviet-Stalinist model.
True, this model had been envisaged in the Napoleon reforms in
France in the beginning of the XIX century, but it never been
fulfilled there, in contrast to many other measures, that shaped the
characteristic French over-etatist and over-centralized secondary
and tertiary education. The real blossoming and fortification of
this model had been made in the Stalinist USSR and all our “former”
countries. The law-creator should consider the indisputable fact,
that the model Specialized Scientific Council + Supreme
Attestation Commission, is a Stalinist-Soviet model and it is high
time it to be swept out from our academic scene.
Nowadays the procedures for
the career development of the academic faculty in Europe and all over
the world exhibit an enormous variety of models, and even sometimes
the procedures in the different parts of one country differ. For
instance in Germany the universities in the different provinces
(Lдnder) have different requirements and exams, different
stages of the procedures. In some of the universities before the
obtaining of the Doctor’s degree the post-graduate students
have to take the difficult rigorosum exam, in others –
not. That’s why a generalization of what is going on in
Europe and all over the world would sound like that: there is
everything and whatever one can imagine, but nowhere there are SSC
(Specialized Scientific Councils, appointed by the PM, i.e. political
constructions and Supreme Attestation Commissions). There is
everything one can imagine, but not anonymous voting of the Doctoral
theses and centralization of the academic promotions. Nowhere in
the world, except in some of the ‘former’ countries,
there is anonymous voting by persons, who are not professionals and
experts in the precise topic of the Doctoral theses and the academic
discipline of the promotions, as it is in our country. Our SSC and
the SAC are a wonderful example of partisan-academic clientelism: the
same persons, appointed mainly on political and partisan reasons
(whatever the political majority is in the Parliament and in the
government), in a centralized structure determine the individual
development of the scholars, and moreover in the majority of the
cases they lack the specific qualification, necessary for the
competent and expert evaluation of the given topic of the theses or
the discipline of the promotion.
In this connection I should underline,
that in the transition period in Bulgaria only the present political
majority resisted the temptation to re-arrange the members of the
SSCs and SAC, and to appoint the “right persons” in them.
All these
considerations have united the experts’ community and the
majority of the colleagues, who participated in the discussions of
the draft-proposal of the new Act, prepared by Georgi Panev, in the
autumn of 2000. They have approved not the draft in general, but
some of the back-bone-ideas in it. Moreover, the justice demands
to stress on the fact that these ideas have found its place in the
draft-proposal precisely because of the efforts, exercised in
advance for years by the most prominent our professors and dozents
in philosophy and sociology of education. Later on the project has
been associated only with the name of Panev, because he had
submitted it in the Parliamentary commission for education and
culture, which is: 1) misleading the general public, who are the
real advocates of the changes; and 2) infavourable for the outcome
of this complicated policy and legislative process, because of some
previous ambivalent and disputable legislative measures, introduced
by Panev in the higher education System.
The experts’
community has been united by the conviction that the break through
in the Stalinist model of the SSCs and SAC would be successful, only
if the principle ad hoc is taken as a general one. The principle
ad hoc means, that a certain jury will be determined by a lot for
every defense of Doctoral theses and each promotion, among the
specialists in this or the closest disciplinary field. This
principle is ruling in all EU countries. According to a smaller
number of experts, who have worked a year ago on a new
draft-proposal for Higher education Act in the Ministry of
education, the exact number of the members of the jury, should be
determined in the statute of each university, because this is an
essential part of the academic freedom and autonomy. The
draft-proposal “Panev” has envisaged 7 members of the
jury, which is in conformity with the Greek and Italian models.
The experts’
community insists that a General Register of all habillitated
persons should me made. It is very important all, without any
omissions whatsoever to be included in the Register. Otherwise,
inescapably there will be suspicions that the promotion processes
are guided by political considerations, partisan battles or personal
relations. Unfortunately, in the draft-proposal “by Panev”
this was not the case and instead of this again a centralizing
structure-“hat” was envisaged (State Attestation
Agency). According to this draft this SAC should elect the persons
(included in a National Experts Staff) that are to be elected as
members of the juries. What was expelled from the door, came in
through the window. This measures again could allow the political
intrusion and the group intrigues. Naturally, the experts’
community discarded this idea in the draft “by Panev”.
It is even worse in the drafts by Ganchev-Anastasova-Mestan and by
Panayotov. They propose the present situation not to be changed, but
to be renamed. Again and again they propose SSCs and
centralizing-unifying structure (and again and again it is directly
subdued to the PM and the Minister of education). According to these
two drafts this structure is called State Commission for academic
attestation. The comparison between these two projects shows, that
the draft by Panayotov has a certain advantage, in so far the
prerogatives of the proposed SCAA are reduced considerably, compared
with the present day functions of the SAC and with the envisaged in
the drafts by Ganchev-Anastasova-Mestan. In this project the present
structures with their functions are just renamed.
Also, one of the most
significant changes that is needed in the reform of the academic
“System”, according to the experts’ community, is
the abolishment of the anonymous voting everywhere – in
the faculty councils, in the SSCs, and in the SAC. It is also my
deepest believe, that if this remains unchanged, the rivers of young
Bulgarians, that flow from the country abroad, and inside the
country from the education and science to other spheres, will
continue to overflow. The younger scholar or scientist-research
could accept the lower salary, because (s)he is familiar with the
fact that in many economically developed countries the younger
academics are (low) middle class. However, as a compensation for
this one has many other advantages in one’s life, the main of
which is the research and creative character of the profession, that
is closer to the free professions, than to the clerk’s work.
But, if to the fact of the low incomes is added the total
annihilation of the research work, which had been done passionately
for years, we don’t have the slightest reason to expect the
ceasing of the migration processes. The present procedures with the
anonymous voting allow all kinds of forcible impositions of
considerations from all kind of extra-academic and extra-scientific
character on the work of the (young) scholars. Here also should be
added that the mere profile of the persons, who judge in some
academic collegia, is more than problematic. The reasons for this
claim of main are presented in details in the research paper “Homo
academicus bulgaricus”. In brief they are: the systematic
destruction of the intellectual and the artistic capital of the
nation in the period 1944-1956; the mechanisms for the cultivating
of the new socialist intelligentsia in the 60-ies, the 70-ies and
the 80-ies; the obligatory Party-membership for the personal career
development not in all, but in many academic disciplines; and many
other circumstances and reasons, with which all of us, the
Bulgarians are more than familiar. All these have lead to a very
disputable quality of the highest level of the Bulgarian academic
circles, especially in the disciplines with greater degree of
ideologization in the previous political regime. Here I will allow
myself to share my impression, acquired in the past dozen of years
of teaching at the SU. Some of our students, especially the ones,
who have graduated from the elitist foreign language and natural
sciences gymnasia, posses greater general and special culture, and
more linguistic and computer skills, than some of their professors.
It is too naпve to assume that these young people will chose
the difficult path of the education and science in our country, and
that they will allow to be judged and evaluated by those, whom they
haven’t respected in their students’ years. For them
anywhere is better than here. That’s why the legislator should
take into account the consideration that the settlement of this
issue predetermines a significant factor in the motivation of the
young talented and gifted people to remain here or to leave the
country.
It is true, that in some
countries there is also anonymity in the voting procedures, but there
are other mechanisms that give the necessary perspicuity for the
reasons of the given evaluation. In France, in Greece and in Germany
the three, or the five, or the seven persons, who vote, vote
anonymously. However, in France the voting persons give a short
written evaluation. In Germany the two Doctor-Vater-s and the
representative of the faculty are obliged to make a detailed oral
evaluation, which is recorded word by word in the minutes of the
procedure. In Greece, the three persons, who have tutored the writing
of the Doctoral paper, and who have followed the work of the
applicant step by step, have the decisive word before the voting.
What matters is the fact, that even in the cases where there is
anonymous voting, the evaluated applicant or the candidate-doctor
receives either the written motivation of the voters, or their oral
assessments, that are preserved in the minutes. These measures
prevent the discrepancies between the written and/or the oral
judgements of the voters and their final vote.
In other countries, especially with
regards of the full-time employment, the decision is taken personally
by the chair of the department or the Dean, or by the rector of the
university, or by the chair of trustees. Such is the typical
Anglo-Saxon tradition. Still, in these cases, in these type of
procedures, it is clear and indisputable whose is this decision, who
is responsible for one or another academic choice. It is well known
also, that in the classical Humboldtian type university the professor
in given academic field solely and individually decides who to become
a doctoral student or an assistant. In this
“German-mandarin-professor” type of career building, it
is more than evident who has taken or another decision.
It is worth mentioning, that as a
form of prevention of the “academic” irresponsibility in
the former USSR has existed the following disputable unwritten rule:
If the anonymous vote of the members of the SSCs is different from
the evaluation, recommended by the peer-reviewers, the members of the
SSC have been dismissed, and others have been appointed as new
members.
In our present legislative regulation
there is a single mechanisms for taking the personal responsibility
for the development of the (younger) academics. On the contrary,
there are infinite possibilities for impersonal, anonymous
irresponsibility and for getting rid of the independent and critical
persons, who are on the lower step. The chief ones among them are the
anonymous voting and the closed procedures for becoming dozent or
professor. The minutes of these procedures remain secret, hence
everyone from the members of the SSCs can make whatever one wants as
an oral statement and influence the voters, because subsequently the
applicant is not allowed to read the minutes and to get acquainted
with the fact, who has spoken and what has been said. It is clear,
what will be the tendencies in the Bulgarian human academic capital,
if this situation is preserved. In this respect the draft-proposal
“by Panev” envisaged counter-measures as: the open
voting; the impossibility to refuse to write a peer-review ( which is
often done in order to prolong some procedures for years; the removal
for one year from the National Experts Register in the cases of an
inadequate peer-review ( because some peer-reviewers deny the
existence of books, published by the applicants); and ultimate
removal from the Register in a second similar case.
One of the incurable
weak-points of the “system” now is the bounding of the
academic career development with the places for employment, that are
already available in a given research- or educative institution for
higher learning. In our higher education “system”
there is numerus clausus everywhere and in all levels: the
enrollment of the students, the students for the master’s
degree, the places for the assistant-professors, dozents and
professors. Provided that this numerus clausus principle is kept,
even if all other drastic changes eventually are made ( as the
appointment of an ad hoc jury instead of the constant SSC and the
open voting) the impediments for the development of the academic
human resources will remain. The present situation predetermines the
personal path of every scholar and scientist to be dependant not on
the qualities (s)he possesses, but on “the place”.
Therefore a legislative change should aim to provide such
institutional circumstances, in which the personal development would
be bounded to the personal qualities and achievements. That means:
a)
the number of the doctoral students could and should be much greater
than the present one; in the current situation the departments
are allowed to appoint doctoral students only if somebody from the
habillitated staff is supposed to retire within the next years;
b) the number of the
assistants, the dozents, and the professors could be enlarged
considerably by the part-time teaching, or the so called private
dozentura or private professorship. These mechanisms could create
possibilities for the persons, who possess Doctor’s degrees and
who are not employed for a full-time job in the higher education
institutions ( but work elsewhere, say in the business, or the media,
the secondary schools, etc. ) to deliver periodically specialized
courses of lectures, to lead seminars, to work as tutors for some
doctoral students, to write peer-reviews.
This idea was considered in the
working group of experts, who have worked in the Ministry of
education and science a year ago ( who almost finished their work on
a brand new Higher education act, and whose work was interrupted on
demand of certain academic authorities, who insisted that we don’t
need any legislative changes whatsoever).
This idea is embodied in the
draft-proposal by Alexander Panayotov ( Part I, ch. 1, art. 3).
Another idea, which was discussed in
the experts’ community with respect with the enlargement of the
working possibilities in the academic sphere was inspired by the
present practice one and same professor or dozent to teach
simultaneously in several universities. Unfortunately, such is the
case now. The limited number of habillitated faculty allows them to
monopolize all working positions and to be full-time employed in
several universities. It is not rear in Bulgaria to meet someone, who
is full-time professor in a state university, full-time professor in
a private university, and part-time professor in another state
university. In this respect as a partner could be attracted the
private universities. They have to be persuaded that it is high time
to enhance their own academic capacities, to create their own
academic collegium and to stop relying on the academic authorities,
whom they share with the state universities. The present employment
of one and the same person in two or three higher educative
institutions prevents the quality of education and keeps the number
of the academic working positions very low. If this practice is
abolished, the number of the assistant-professors, the dozents and
the professors will be increased at least twice.
One of the ideas that
united the experts community in the discussions of the legislative
initiatives so far, was the radical change for the starting of
the promotion procedures and the abolishment of the so called
approbation, or the internal defense ( in the department). The
scholar, regardless whether (s)he is young or middle aged, whether
(s)he has written a “small” or a “big”
doctorate, whether (s)he is applying for dozentura or professorship,
is a full aged person. One of the good proposals in the draft “by
Panev” was precisely this – the personal initiative for
the beginning of the procedures. A good idea is proposed in the
draft by Panayotov as well, where it is envisaged that the
peer-reviewers not to be appointed among the ones, who are full-time
employed in the same institution, where the doctoral-student or the
applicant is working.
Last, but not least,
another idea, which should be mentioned as dominating in the
experts’ community, is the abolishment of the double
doctorate system. This academic settlement is one of the
favourable features that enabled the USA so rapidly to enhance their
academic potential and so dynamically to maximize the effect of the
research and the teaching. Unfortunately, it was rejected by the
academic notabiles. Given this enormous resistance, as a
compromise solution in the legislative process should be left the
degree “Doctor of sciences” (which is dear to many), but
it should be completely decentralized: the order, the requirements,
and regulations for the obtaining of this degree should be
determined in the statutes of the universities.
The brand new legislative initiative – the
draft-proposal by Alexander Panayotov - in this context
There are several phrases, repeated
several times in this “draft-proposal”, as for example
“the departments with the harmful micro-climate”, which
make me suppose that the author of this draft is one of the numerous
victims of the present system for the development of the academic
career in our country. There are also some ideas in his project,
designed as a possible preventing measures against the interference,
exercised sometimes by the immediate colleagues on one’s work
and recognition. These are the proposals: a) the peer-reviewers to be
appointed from the ones, who are not employed in the same institution
as the candidate-doctor or the applicant for associate-professorship
or professorship; b) the colleagues-members of the SSC, who come from
the same institution as the applicant or the candidate, not to vote
in the procedure in the SSC. ( As a colleague of mine at the Faculty
of philosophy says, “our academia are full with repressed and
depressed talented scholars and wonderful persons” and it is a
real miracle that so many people make great achievements despite this
“system”. And how many could succeed, if the system had
been different? )
In a more impersonal and analytic
tune I want to stress also on the fact, that in the draft-proposal by
Panayotov there are several more valuable ideas, which are new in
respect of the other two projects:
*the proposal an exam in foreign
language knowledge to be introduced for the applicants for full-time
academic positions ( so far one can become, say, an
assistant-professor, associate professor or professor without any
foreign language written or oral exam);
*the proposal for the admission the
doctorate papers to be written in foreign languages as well (this was
possible for a very short time during the governance of Philip
Dimitrov, but later on this was abolished, because the majority of
the venerable members of the SSCs cannot read foreign languages);
*the idea for the degrees of the
evaluation of the doctoral theses with Latin terms
in accordance with the century long
university tradition in Europe – rite; cum laude; magna cum
laude; summa cum laude;
In final score this project is much
better than the draft by Ganchev-Anastasova-Mestan, which sounds
extremely good when its motives and intentions are read at the end of
it. But in total opposition to these proclaimed aims, the draft by
Ganchev-Anastasova-Mestan preserves the present structures and
procedures and simply renames them. The draft by Panayotov goes
further than the renaming, but not that far, as it is necessary to
go, in my conviction. Unfortunately, the draft by Panayotov envisages
the structures of the SSCs and the SAC to be kept, and the procedure
of the anonymous voting to be preserved. Here and now, with respect
to the extremely dangerous processes of the depopulation of the
country and the decrease of its scientific potential, we need much
more radical legislative measures.
As a member of the Bulgarian
experts’ community and the younger reformative academic
faculty, I can summarize that the main ideas of the draft “by
Panev” receive the greatest support and approval in these two
circles. Let me repeat once again, that these ideas are derived and
inspired from the dominant European practices ( which have many
varieties, but no SSCs and SAC) and are closer to the Greek-Italian
model. This is important for us, because Greece is the only Balkan
country-member both of the EU and NATO, and Bulgaria is an accession
country for these two supranational unities. These ideas have been
advocated by the best and highly respected experts in sociology and
philosophy of education. However, being modest and introvert persons
they didn’t wont to act as public figures and politicians.
That’s why the draft-proposal was associated with the name of
Panev, which had a somewhat negative influence on the process. To a
great degree all these ideas have been embodied in the working papers
of the group of experts, who prepared in the previous year
draft-proposals for new Higher education act and Academic degrees and
titles act.
Conclusion:
The reforms in the academic
sphere and the changing of the mechanisms, which regulate the
development of our academics have a supreme importance for the state
and the society. They will meet a resistance, comparable to the
counter-action against the efforts to reform the judiciary and the
strategic privatization deals, taken together. The most influential
in the media and the most highly ranked level of the academic guild
with great probability will confront all real attempts for a reform
and it will accept favourably the more innocent, renaming variants,
which preserve the essence of the status quo ante.
If the legislator is to introduce a new
legislative regulation, which corresponds to the century long
European traditions and to the global tendencies in the contemporary
world, a strong campaign for the convincing of the public opinion via
the media should be undertaken. The public opinion has to be
convinced in the enormous social importance of these academic
changes.
This will be a very difficult task,
but the pledge is great: aren’t the people the wealth of
Bulgaria?
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