Higher education in Romania – how to satisfy its beneficiaries
Policy paper, June 2001
Issue/problem:
Higher education in Romania does not respond to the market demand. The business community, one of the major beneficiaries of higher education services, considers that higher education in Romania is not enough practically-oriented. It is considered that higher education does not prepare students for effectively and efficiently operate in the real company setting, it does not offer its graduates skills required by companies such as: communication skills, team work skills, flexibility, adaptability, planning and shyntesizing skills, as well as the ability to apply in practice the knowledge of the specific field of specialization.
Scope of the problem:
History: traditionally education in Romania (as in most of continental Europe) including higher education, is based on the accumulation of a large amount of knowledge, assimilated mainly in a reproductive manner.
How it did become an issue: the Romanian society was always aware of the discrepancy between theory and practice in education and because the problem is so old and no efforts where ever made to solve it by those in charge (Ministry of Education and university management since 1998), it became an accepted state of facts at the level of society. However, the affected parts (individual students and graduates, companies) they do complain about this problem when asked. At the same time they tried to remove the negative effects of the issue on their own by investing time and money for further education, both at individual level and at company level.
The present policy paper is based on the findings of the empirical study conducted in 2000 in Romania “Private Higher Education in Romania: Success or Failure?”. The study was the first of this type (asking the business community in its quality of main beneficiary, about the educational system and its results) in Romania and it aimed to identify the perception and the attitude of the business community about private higher education as compared to state higher education in Romania. Besides reaching the research objective, a more significant finding came out from the study: regardless of the differences between them, both educational systems state and private in Romania do not satisfy one of its main beneficiaries: the business community. Companies consider higher education as not being sufficiently practically-oriented and as not offering their students and graduates the necessary skills.
Who is affected by the problem:
- Individual university graduates are affected by the failure of higher education to meet the market needs, as they have difficulties in finding an appropriate job: an university diploma gets them on the shortlist, but does not secure them a job, if they do not have the required skills. Also the adjustment period at the work place is for some individuals too long, aspect that affects negatively the company, as the respective employee does not work at full potential for a long period when first employed (as found out from empirical evidence gathered in 2000). From the perspective of the graduate-employee, this adjustment period can be a stressful experience especially if he is not flexible enough by nature and if the company has no induction and training procedures for new entrants.
- Companies are another group affected by the lack of practical orientation of higher education in Romania. The inability to apply theory in practice, the lack of analytical skills, problem-solving skills, communication skills, as well as the low capacity to work in teams, to take initiative to adapt to new working conditions, to work under pressure were some of the aspects (generated by empirical evidence gathered in 2000) that companies would like to see changed in higher education graduates.
Why is not higher education practically-oriented in Romania?
We can identify 4 types of causes to explain the higher education failure to meet market needs, in terms of practical orientation:
1) the content of the curricula and the content of the courses.
Some disciplines are included in the curricula because they are traditional, but they no longer fit into the needs of the present development stage of the society. The content of some disciplines is out-dated, they do not follow the newest changes in the respective field. In some cases students are taught things that were valid 20 years ago, but they are not up-dated with the newest things in the field. This is due to old generations of professors who are less willing to up-date their courses and is also due to the lack of a good national and international documentation base.
2) the teaching methods.
Traditionally the main teaching methods in Romanian higher education are lectures combined with seminars for problem-solving, in which the professor has also a leading role. The learning process is repetitive and it is very little experiential learning, the type of learning that will help students to build up the skills required by companies (initiative, creativity, adaptability, flexibility, and s.o.).
3) the organizational culture.
The educator is seen as the master of the class who has a high authoritative position and therefore usually it is very little two-way communication between students and the professor. Such a strongly hierarchical culture in education has two negative effects: teaches students an obidient behavior that is contrary to the initiative and creativity desired by companies and secondly impedes universities to find out what are the real needs of its clients, the students.
4) the weak relationship of education with the business community
A more practical oriented education it is not possible without a strong relationship with the practical world. The interaction between higher education and the business community is generally weak: there is no participation of representatives of the business community in the management structures of higher education; only occasional organized students’ exchanges or students’ visits within companies, etc. If there are any relationships between education and the business community, they are either based on personal relationships of a few professors who invite practitioners to their classes, or it is a co-operation initiated by companies (usually foreign companies) that are willing to improve their own public images helping in this way higher education (joint research centers, sponsorships).
Existing policy: The Ministry of Education in Romania was aware of the necessity to create a more practical oriented higher education, as it did mention in its published documents presenting the educational reform at the beginning of 2000. The way the ministry found to solve the issue was “to change the curricula so it is closer to practice”. This is not the solution to the problem as not curricula alone determines the practical orientation of education. Also the curricula cannot be changed overnight and as no implementation program was in place, the solution was more on the paper. On the other hand at the political election from November 2000 the political structure of the Romanian government (and also of the Ministry of Education) changed and the present ministerial team did not formally approach the issue at all so far.
Views of groups affected:
The measures to make higher education more practically oriented, will be perceived by some groups positively and by some other groups negatively.
Companies and individuals will be the groups that will be affected favourable and will perceive the changes in this way. If the measures are successful and higher education becomes more practically oriented and more responding to market needs, companies will be supplied with better qualified work force with a higher degree of readiness to integrate at the work place. Individuals will also perceive positively the change from two perspectives: 1) the learning process can be more pleasant and more useful and 2) as they will be able to find jobs easier and to perform better at the work place from the early stages of their employment life.
Some other groups, mainly related to the academic world, even though they agree on a principle level to the necessity to shift the educational process towards practice, in concrete terms at the implementation level it is likely that they will oppose.
Professors: there is a traditional hierarchical structure in the professoral body at the level of university. The decision power over both administrative and academic issues is usually in the hands of the “most experienced” professors in time terms. Such supremacy of old generations, used with a certain way to conduct the educational process, will generate a situation in which firstly, they are not able to introduce changes because they do not know what is to be done and secondly they will not be willing to do it, as it requires to change whatever they know from 20 or more years of experience. The younger generations of professors will probably be more eager to accept and implement the change, but they have less decision power.
Academic management: plays an important role for changes at the level of university since the universitary autonomy was enacted in 1998. The custom of complying to ministerial directions and the lack of experience in taking initiative and solving problems will make the process more difficult.
On the other hand regardless the solution that will be chosen, the academic management has to put more effort in organizing the activities and also financing them, and this might be perceived as a problem and might generate either resistance or passivity and lack of action.
Ministry of Education: even though a lot of operational issues have been transferred at the level of institution, the ministry still has a significant role in managing higher education. With the change in the political parties in power at the end of year 2000, there were no declarations if the educational reform re-launched in 1998 by the ex-government will be continued and in which directions. However the Ministry of Education it is known as a reactive rather than a pro-active institution. The difficulty to design and implement programs and the lack of funds required to do so, might also generate reluctance to initiative and change.
Options
There are 3 options through which higher education can be made more practically oriented so that it will respond more to the market demand:
1. Improve the body of professors
2. Design longer and better controlled (by the higher education institutions) periods of practice for students.
3. Increase the co-operation education-industry through paid internships for students in companies.
1. Improve the body of professors so that they can provide during classes experiences similar to what the graduate will encounter at the work place, can be one way to make higher education more practically oriented. At present professors in Romania are appreciated as being experts in their fields, as offering good knowledge (based on empirical data gathered in 2000), yet graduates do not have the ability to apply what they learned (as appreciated too by their employers). Consequently, graduates have to develop personal transferable skills such as: habits of thoughts, to be flexible, adaptable, to work in teams, to communicate, to plan activities, to prepare, process and present information, to collect and record data, abilities that are not effectively addresses through the experience of conventional academic practice. Graduates can get these skills only through adequate learning experiences or through practical experience. At present, academic staff in Romanian universities is not fully prepared to offer such teaching experiences that will enable students to acquire such generic abilities.
Consequently the professors’ body can be improved by:
- training them in teaching methods. At present no pedagogical training is run in higher education institutions and this is reflected in the quality of education and in its too theoretically perceived character. Professors are learning to teach by trial and through their own mistakes and this takes a lot of time and sometimes it has little results. By training professors to use more interactive teaching methods and more experiential teaching methods will determine the improvement in the quality of learning for students on the one hand and will also change the organizational culture, the mentality of professors by emphasizing not only on the content of the discipline, but also on the learning process itself.
- attracting new people: younger professors. Younger generations of professors more open to new will be an advantage: as they can assimilate easier the modern interactive teaching methods and they can be more open to the necessities of students. Attracting younger professors who have studied in alternative educational systems (abroad) can be a way to revigorate and change the existing educational system if their experience and knowledge is taken into consideration.
- attracting new people: practitioners. Practitioners can bring a good input into education by exemplifying from their practical experiences and by offering connections in the business community. They also have to participate in teaching training sessions so that their experience and knowledge to be most effectively transmitted to students.
2. Designing longer periods of students’ practice within the companies, activities required to be tighter controlled by companies. The present system already includes stages of practice within companies, but students are left to find on their own a place to go and stay for 2-3 weeks every year and many of them just come with a written proof of doing so without really going to companies. A new approach will be to design longer practice periods and better co-ordinated and controlled by universities. Pre-established objectives for each practice period should be set, the profile of the companies should be suitable with the specialization of the student and the relationship university-company should be officially set at the initiation of the university. A difficulty is for universities to find so many companies willing to take in students for practice pertiods.
If seriously done such periods can give students an insight about how things are going into practice. A difficulty would be that companies are not willing to delegate complex tasks to students as there is a tendency to just leave them observe or give them very under-qualified tasks.
3. Introducing students’ paid internships within companies is another alternative for getting the educational process more practically oriented. The advantage for students will be that they will work in real life situations, they will do on-the-job practice. As the companies will pay for their work they will also be willing to exploit students’ knowledge and abilities. There will be project-base work in real economic settings, work that will be evaluated by both the employers and the educational institution. The success of this alternative will depend on the relationship between the university and the business community: university management will have to find enough companies to place all students and the companies have to be willing to take so many students. Companies might be reluctant to take students for internship on a short term basis. Such an alternative requires contractual arrangements between the university and the companies, even the enacment of legislation in order to university facilitate access into companies.
- it can be the most effective if implemented properly: professors have the knowledge and the overall vision over a discipline as compared to practitioners who have more job/industry specific specialized knowledge.
- it will be well-received by the re-newed body of professors, as the training sessions will consist a good motivational tool for stimulating self-improvement, once the funds are allocated and the periodically training activities become part of the educational system.
The 3 activities proposed for the improvement of the professors’ body can be implemented as follows:
1. the pedagogical training can be introduced as a system through the organization of periodical (yearly) teaching training sessions at which professors have to attend. This can be enacted by law and put into practice either by the training centers approved by the Ministry of Education or it can be left at the level of university to purchase such services and make the proof of it.
2. the attraction of new younger professors can be achieved through the organization of recruitment campaigns based on better and more clearer defined selection criteria in which the pedagogical abilities to play a role as important as the knowledge. This is to be realized at the university level. The problems are: raising awareness at the level of university management of this necessity; the opposition of exiting professoral body who want to keep their advantages and positions.
3. the attraction in the professors body of practitioners can be realized by offering practitioners who are willing to teach stable positions within universities or by creating a framework for a better collaboration between professors and the business community (for joint teaching).
Only this policy itself will not completely solve the problem, as it is a matter of structurally changing higher education as a whole in order to be able to obtain such effects. A professor on his own, even if he learns about modern teaching methods he cannot implement them if he is not supported by the system: an adequate material base to be able to apply the modern teaching methods, permanent access to documentation, periodically pedagogical training. Such a support requires financial sources and organizational capacity at the institutional level.
Finally, we would like to include our present policy proposal in the logical flow of action for solving the problem of better responding to market demand by shifting towards a more practically oriented education.