The Open World and Closed Societies: Essays on Higher Education Policies “in Transition” PDF
Preview The Open World and Closed Societies: Essays on Higher Education Policies “in Transition”
The Open World and Closed Societies This page intentionally left blank The Open World and Closed Societies Essays on Higher Education Policies “in Transition” Voldemar Tomusk THEOPENWORLDANDCLOSEDSOCIETIES © Voldemar Tomusk 2004 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-6507-3 All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010 and Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire,England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States,United Kingdom and other countries.Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-52868-4 ISBN 978-1-4039-7947-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781403979476 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tomusk,Voldemar,1962– The open world and closed societies :essays on higher education policies ‘in transition’/ Voldemar Tomusk. p.cm.(Issues in higher education) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1.Higher education and state—Europe,Eastern—Cross-cultural studies. 2.Educational change—Europe,Eastern—Cross-cultural studies.I.Title. II.Issues in higher education (New York,N.Y.) LC178.E852T66 2004 378.47—dc22 2003053654 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd.,Chennai,India. First edition:April 2004 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To the Memory of My Dad We are all swallowed up in politics; there is no room for letters; and it is feared that the next generation will not only inherit but improve the polite ignorance of the present. Simon Ockley, clerk in Holy orders and Sir Thomas Adams’s Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge 1678–1720 Contents Acknowledgments ix Preface xiii Chapter 1. From Lenin to Digital Rapture: The Everlasting Transition in East European Higher Education and Beyond 1 Chapter 2. Higher Education Reform in Romania: Knocking on Heaven’s Door 19 Chapter 3. Thirteen Years of Higher Education Reforms in Estonia: Perfect Chaos 35 Chapter 4. Russian Higher Education After Communism: The Candy Man’s Gone 53 Chapter 5. Market as Metaphor in East European Higher Education 75 Chapter 6. Reaching Beyond Geometry— The Privateness of Private Universities 89 Chapter 7. Exploring the Limits of Entrepreneurial Response 105 Chapter 8. When East Meets West: Decontextualizing the Quality of East European Higher Education 119 Chapter 9. Reproduction of the “State Nobility” in Eastern Europe: Past Patterns and New Practices 131 Chapter 10. The Communication Community and the Scam of the Knowledge Society 145 Chapter 11. Transnational Capitalist Class and World Bank “Aid” for Higher Education 167 viii/ contents Chapter 12. Toward a Model of Higher Education Reform in Central and East Europe 183 Epilogue: The Unholy Trinity of Prince, Prophet, and Philosopher 199 Notes 203 Bibliography 223 Index 235 Acknowledgments It is more than a decade since I wrote my first paper on higher education “in transition” and presented it to an audience of around two people at the annual conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education at the University of Surrey in England. Now, it seems a less than naïve attempt to grasp a process that had not yet even begun. I have been lucky enough being able to spend the intervening decade observ- ing the reforms in East European higher education or, as has often been the case, the nonreforms, as a young faculty member, a government official, and for the past seven years as an open society activist. It has allowed me to experience changes within the university and the Ministry of Education, as well as to see how these appear from the perspective of a major international donor organization. The opportunity to be at the heart of change has been a major learning experience for me, as it has been the opportunity to work with a number of special people who have shaped our world as it enters the new millennium. I have to confess that there is one single reason why I accepted the position I was offered back in 1995 at the Ministry of Culture and Education of the Republic of Estonia when I returned from a year-long training program at the International Institute of Educational Planning in Paris. It may sound utterly selfish, and it perhaps is, but the only reason for my entering the Ministry was that I wanted to know what was going on. It was a difficult job, and the salary accorded a young family with two small children a living standard just below the poverty level, but I wanted to know what was going on because for somebody looking in from the outside, the steps the Ministry was taking appeared somewhat less than well thought through policy. It did not take long to understand the internal mechanisms involved in that. Neither did much time pass before I was offered an opportunity to apply my newly gained knowl- edge on a wider international scale in the Open Society Institute in Budapest. It seemed to be another good opportunity to learn and perhaps to do some worthwhile things along the way. So in less than two months from the point at which I had been told about the job, my family and I had settled in Budapest. The results of my dozen years of practical studies of the East European higher education transition are presented in this book. One might argue, and rightly so, that not a great deal has been accomplished here. It is by no means a systematic study, its theoretical background does not reach the necessary depths, and the empirical evidence is less than complete. If there is anything with which I might excuse myself then perhaps it is that there is no part of this book that was written for professional research purposes. The essays collected here were written at nights and weekends in
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