on the Project

LEGISLATING FOR HIGHER EDUCATION IN SOME BALKAN COUNTRIES,

International Policy Fellowships Program,

Center for Policy Studies,

Open Society Institute, Budapest, Hungary

For the aims and the goals of the Project, in the period June 2002-March 2003 I have done the following:

Research-trip in Greece – the end of July 2002 ( and participation in the constitutive meeting of the Southeast European Association for the study of Ancient philosophy in Delphi, 25-27^th of July).

This research trip was very important for my work on the project, because in the libraries and the bookshops in Greece, I found many books and the indispensable legislative documents for the higher education in Greece. For all the other Balkan countries there are many documents and information, which are electronically available, mainly on the http://www.see-educoop.net (on it one can find the laws for the different levels of education in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Rumania, Slovenia). There are three links to Turkish higher education institutions and documents in the link Resources on my web. The information about Greece is very important, because it is the only Balkan country, which is already an EU and NATO member. In Bulgaria there is a considerable consensus that our country should become EU and NATO member, and that’s why the Greek legislature and practice in the higher education was an important positive example, referred to in my final policy paper.

Two articles in one of the most influential Bulgarian dailies – Dnevnik (available also online at www.dnevnik.bg)

1. Fake diplomas are obtained from our universities? On July 11^th 2002. This article was provoked by many announcements, made in the Macedonian and the Greek media about the numerous fake diplomas, issued by some Bulgarian universities, which lead to a considerable decrease in the number of the foreign, especially Greek students, studying in Bulgaria.

2. Why the students have to vote for them? On December 10^th 2002.This text was written after the extremely low participation of the students in the elections for the Students’ council in Sofia University in November, 2002.

Participation in the second workshop THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETIES – London, November, 16-18^th, 2002. This workshop was again organized by CHERI (the Center for Higher Education Research and Information) and ACU (the Association of the Commonwealth Universities). In this workshop participated again my colleagues from the IPF programme, from the Higher education analyses group, and many other colleagues ( see the photo on the web). All of us made presentations of our projects from the point of view of our answer to the question: “What has been the role, played by the universities in our country in respect of the complicated social processes during the transition period?” My answer to this question in my presentation in the London workshop was based on the sub-chapter “Transition and transformation”, published on my web in the first chapter of the interim research paper. Now you can read it as a separate final research paper, entitled: “Transition and transformation ( from the point of view of a sceptic academician)”

Participation in the 24^th annual forum of EAIR ( the European Association for institutional research), 8 – 11 September 2002, Prague. The general topic of the forum this year was “Crossing national, structural and technological borders: development and management in higher education”. As usually hundreds of participants from all continents attended this influential forum. Except from the plenary keynotes and sessions, I attended track 3 “Prague summit” and the discussion, chaired by Voldemar Tomusk “Bologna initiative in Eastern Europe: Political opportunism or the last chance for a reform?” Afterwards I have developed my presentation into the paper “Apology of the Bologna declaration against the murmurs”, which you can find on the web.

Participation in the programme “Look who…”, on the Bulgarian National Television on the 7^th of December. In this program many questions on the students’ problems and the quality of the higher education were raised, but the time was insufficient for a proper discussion.

Forthcoming: By the end of this year I intend to publish in Bulgarian a book with “Sonm-publishers”, which will be entitled “New considerations about the University”, which will contain the four articles, published in “Dnevnik” in 2002 and all these papers, that I have written for the IPF: the final policy paper, and the three research papers: “Homo academicus bulgaricus”, “Apologia Declarationis boloniensis contra murmurantes” and “Transition and transformation from the point of view of a sceptic academician”.