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C. Comparison between the state and the private universities

From the study conducted in the two universities, the private and the public one, a number of similarities and differences emerged in relationship to the way they conduct their academic activity and the way they perceive and implement the higher education reform.

First of all the two universities differed as proprietary form (state/private), but also as size (number of academic staff and number of students) with the state university twice the size the private university (in terms of students) and five times larger in terms of academic staff.

Looking at similarities, there were identified a number of aspects common to the two universities:

1. In both universities the components of the reform, its objectives and directions are not known at the level of ordinary academic, with some more knowledge at the level of management. This reflects a deficitary communication from the MER towards universities and within the universities themselves.

2. In neither university academic staff including most of the academics on managerial positions too, could not precisely define the mission, the objectives and the strategy of their faculties and university, even when they did existed in a written form in some documents. In both universities ordinary academics mentioned that they have not been consulted by the top management when setting objectives and strategies for their faculty/university, proving centralization tendencies on the one hand, and communication weaknesses on the other hand. In these conditions whatever plans the top management of universities have, they are difficult to be sucessfully implemented when the ones who are supposed to implement them, do not know them.

3. In both universities, the setting up of the curriculum for a course is officially (declared) done by the collectives of academics teaching that discipline, while in practice younger academic staff on lower academic positions complained that their opinions are not taken at all or not enough into consideration, leaving the course coordinator and older professors with the largest role in setting the course curriculum. This traditional way of setting the curricula was kept in state universities over many years and was also transmitted to private higher education, perpetuating the monopolization of decisions on the one hand and the differences between generations on the other hand.

4. In both universities there have been introduced systems for the evaluation of the teaching activities in the last 3-4 years. The systems have been conceived at the level of top management in both universities but their implementation differed. While in the private university the process is more organized, more transparent and takes place in an unitary way, in the state university, the management offered some guidlines to be adapted at the level of faculty that resulted in a disorganized process, non-transparent and inefficace in most faculties of the public university. This can be considered a result of the refom, as it is requiered in the accreditation standards.

5. In both universities the senates developed guidelines for the evaluation of students in the last 3-4 years, placing a larger extent on the during the year evaluation than before. This is another result of the reform.

6. In both universities there were academics who proposed the elimination of the licencing exam concomitently with an increase in the exigency for the final dissertation. The simplication of the licencing process is seen as a solution, now that private universities started to be accredited and can organize their own licencing exams.

7. Both universities have known some improvement in the technical endowment, but in both ordinary academics still have difficulties in getting access to printers, computers, paper, slides and writing tools. This shows that there are still academics who still have „to invest” from their personal income if they want o conduct the class in honorable conditions, as neither the state or the private university do not ensure good material conditions (multiplication of case studies, printing slides, etc) for all the programs and all the professors.

8. The research activity was developed inequally at the level of different faculties in the state and the private university, with one faculty taking the lead in both universities. This reflects that the activity is very much persons related and it depends to a large extent on the initiative and the connections of different members of the collectives and departments.

9. In term of cooperation between faculties, both universities have defficiencies, as the only form of cooperation is related to the coordination of teaching activities, when different professors teach in more faculties.

10. The financial process in both universities lacks transparency, with the top management in charge of the planning and the execution of the budget, with no decentralization of the budget at the level of faculties. Centralization of the financial activities is a common feature for the public and the private university.

11. In both universities there were respondents who considered that the communication and the information processes as being the greatest weaknesses of their university, as it was not the case of any other aspect of the universities’ activity.

12. Neither university organized a coherent system to monitor the evolution of their graduates in the labour market or have formal and continous connections with the business community, in spite of the fact that both of them declared that they adapt to the market requirements on a continous basis.

13. The relations with the business community and the labour market in both universities has no formal organization and is based mainly on the personal relationships of individual academics.

14. In both universities the main motivation for choosing this profession was the psihological incentive, while the financial aspect is considered to be the compromise required in this profession in Romania.

Looking at the differences, there have been identified a number of aspects that varied in the two univesities:

1. The effects of the reform were perceived completely different for the two universities: while for the private university, the accreditation was the main effect, for the public university there were more effects perceived simultaneously with prevalence on the changes in the academic curricula, the increased number of students and the improvement of the material base.

2. In terms of objectives of the university/faculties there were differences between the public and the private univesrity: while the public university defined for itself more general objectives such as increasing the quality of the graduates and of the educational act, the private university has more concrete objectives, such as the finalyzing of the new building, the consolidation of the university’s position in the private higher education sector.

3. Even though in both universities the financial decisions were highly centralized at the level of top management, in the private university the degree of centralization was higher as all decisions were in the hand of only one person, the rector, while in the public university was the universtity level management team (rector and vice-rectors) who would take the financial decisions.

4. In the private university the degree of centralization of the decision making over academic issues (such as the course curriculum) is higher than in the state university. In the private university even at the level of operational issues there is the need of teh rectors’s approval, while in the public university these are delegated at the level of decanates.

5. The admission criteria differ from one university to another, with more criteria taken into consideration in the public university (70% exam, 20% baccalaureate, 10% grades during high school years) than in the private university (50% exam and 50% baccalaureate) and with higher emphasize on the admission exam in the public university.

6. In terms of technical endowment there are still large differences between the two universities: while the public university had as starting point the inherited material base whom it is trying to improve, the private university started from zero and had to create its own basic facilities (such as buildings, class-rooms, etc). Consequently in the public university the modern technical facilities for preparing and teaching, were more developed (free acess to internet, half of the class rooms eqquiped with overhead projectors, a few videoprojectors at the level of university) than in the private university (no access to internet for academics and students, only one overhead projector and videoprojector at the level of university).

7. The process of evaluating the teaching activities is more organized and more transparent in the private university than in the public university. It has an unitary charater at the level of the private university, while in the public university is decentralized at the level of faculties, lacking coherence. In the private university the process is coordinated by the management, while in the public university the process was coordinated by the Students’ Union. However, in the public university most of the professors organize their own evaluation processes for getting feed back from students, that is not the case in the private university.

8. While in the public university there is the perception that the admission standards are lowering, in the private university there is the perception that admission standards are strengthening.

Table no. 3.4. presents the main similarities and differences in terms of strengths and weaknesses of the public and the private university.

Table no. 3.4. Strengths and weaknesses of the public and the private universities

	Strengths		Weaknesses
Similarities	* the recent introduction of the evaluation of courses * the introduction of the unitary systems of students’ evaluation * the main motivation of the academic employees are psychological, based on the pleasure to work with students		* the reform directions were not known * no clear objectives and strategies at the level of university * no team decisions when setting up the course curricula * research inequally developed at the level of faculties * low cooperation between faculties * no monitoring of graduates evolution in the labour market.
	State	Private	State	Private
Differences	* the implementation of some objectives of the reform * the improvement of the course curricula * the higher exigency of admission standards * better material base * individual feed back from students	* more concrete short term objectives * an organized and well developed system of course evaluation	* admission standards are lowering * the level of students’ is lowering	* very centralized financial and academic decision making

The two universities studied the public and the private one have similar strengths and weaknesses, neither of them being very proactive in implementing the reform in higher education. The components and teh perceived affects of the reform are interpreted differently by the two universities, each of them taking into consideration those aspects closely related to their situation and activity. While for the private university the reform meant the development of the private higher education sector, the accreditation of private universities, for the public university the reform meant more autonomy in taking academic decisions.

The two universities presented common weaknesses, such as no clear knowledge of the academics about the university’s objectives and strategy, defficitary communication within the university, low cooperation between faculties, no monitoring of graduates’ evolution in the labour market.

At the same time each of them had distinctive strengths, as compared to the other. The private university has formulated more concrete objectives, whose implementation is permanently monitored. Also in the private univesity the evaluation of the teaching activities is an organized and transparent process, its results being used further for the improvement of the academic activity. The public university implemented more of the directions envisaged through the higher education reform, it still has a more exigent selection system of the candidates and its academics pursue their own evaluation of courses, looking permanently for feed back and self-improvement.

Even tough the reform menat different things and was implemented differently in the two univesities, the academic activities do not differ to a very large extent in the private university as compared to the public university, reflecting a perpetuation of traditional ways of teaching and learning in the Romanian higher education.