Today, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a significant number of higher education institutions and universities in relation to the number of inhabitants.
In addition to eight public universities, there are also a large number of private universities and colleges.
The mere fact that there are a large number of institutions does not necessarily represent a problem.
An increasingly common question
However, the question that is being asked more and more often is: does the higher education system produce the quality that students, society and the economy need?
Debates on higher education reform often boil down to the question of whether it is necessary to reduce the number of universities.
Such an approach, however, does not capture the essence of the problem. A much more important issue is the quality of teaching, the expertise of teaching staff, the relevance of study programs and the actual outcomes of education.
In recent years, there is an increasingly present feeling that the existing system does not follow changes on the labor market and in modern society quickly enough.
Many study programs remain unchanged for years, practical teaching is often insufficiently represented, and the links between the university and the economy are not sufficiently developed.
At the same time, the demographic decline and the departure of young people further reduce the number of students, which raises the question of the sustainability of a large number of institutions and programs.
Before any discussion about funding or reorganization of the system, a stricter and more credible quality control system needs to be established.
University accreditation should not be primarily an administrative procedure based on document verification. It must become a serious mechanism for evaluating the real results achieved by the university.
Regular evaluations
This implies regular and independent evaluations of the quality of teaching, scientific research work, the competence of teaching staff and the success of graduates on the labor market.
Special attention should be paid to indicators such as employability of graduate students, international cooperation, scientific productivity and student satisfaction.
An important step would be greater transparency.
The public should have easy access to information about accreditation results, the quality of study programs and the performance of individual institutions.
Such transparency would enable future students to make informed decisions, and would represent an additional incentive for universities to improve quality.
Equally important is the inclusion of a greater number of international experts in the evaluation and accreditation processes. This would reduce the scope for local influences and increase confidence in the assessment results.
Only after clear standards have been established and after several cycles of serious testing have shown the real state of the system can the issue of funding be raised.
Results and quality
At that moment, it would be justified for a part of public funds to be distributed based on results and quality, and not exclusively according to existing budget models.
Such an approach would make it possible to invest more in successful programs and institutions, while those that do not meet standards would face the obligation of improvement or reorganization.
In some cases, this could also mean shutting down unsustainable programs or merging certain organizational units.
Bosnia and Herzegovina does not need a reform that will be reduced to a mere reduction in the number of universities. It needs a reform that will put quality before quantity.
It is necessary to properly position the Agency for the Development of Higher Education and the Ministries of Education at all levels and the Rector’s Conference and make them responsible for all the demanding processes of adjustment and further, necessary, development of the education system.
The sequence of steps should be clear – establishment of high standards, strict quality control, full transparency of results and only then funding based on achieved results.
Only such an approach can contribute to the creation of a higher education system that will be competitive, credible and capable of providing young people with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the modern world.
Educational standards
Without excessively analyzing the current situation in higher education, it is necessary for the sake of our own future to start taking the necessary steps as soon as possible in raising educational standards and the fateful positioning of the educational system of the future of numerous generations and the needs of our country to keep up with the accelerated development of the countries of Europe and the world.
To talk about the need to reform the educational system, and not to touch on the way of accreditation and licensing of higher education institutions and curricula was really a failure that would not have taken us far from the current situation.
One of the essential prerequisites for the normalization of the situation in higher education is the process of accreditation and licensing.
If the accreditation and control system is not sufficiently defined and strict, then even financing cannot solve the basic problem, which is the evident degradation of the system.
Society as a whole, then interested future students and those who are in the process of education, actually first need to know who produces quality and who does not, in order to be able to decide what to study and what not.
This certainly has as a consequence the financing process based on the mentioned facts, i.e. deciding to whom to give more funds.
Existing weaknesses
Otherwise, we run the risk that additional money will only perpetuate existing weaknesses.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are already institutional mechanisms for accreditation through the Agency for the Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the state register of accredited institutions and defined criteria for quality assessment.
These criteria include development strategy, internal quality assurance, teaching staff, study programs, student evaluation, resources and international cooperation.
However, the reform must go a step further:
* Accreditation cannot only be a verification of documentation, but also a verification of actual results.
* Greater emphasis should be placed on outcomes: how many graduate students find jobs in the profession, how many continue their education, what are the results on professional exams and how much the university contributes to research.
* Review committees should have more international experts to reduce local influence and conflicts of interest. Such an approach is in line with European quality assurance standards.
* Accreditation results should be completely public and easily understandable to students and parents.
Only after several cycles of serious evaluation could the question be asked:
* which universities deserve additional funds,
* which programs should be shut down,
* where to invest in research,
* and where perhaps the merger of certain departments or institutions is justified.
A more difficult approach
In other words, the reform could follow the logic:
standards → quality control → public transparency → funding according to results.
It is an approach that is probably politically more difficult, but fairer in the long run than simply reducing the number of universities.
Because not every small university is necessarily bad, nor is every big university automatically high-quality.
The criteria should be quality and results, not just size or ownership structure.
However, we must be aware that much has been done incorrectly, superficially and essentially formally without a clearly set goal and the achievement of much-needed results, he writes. Report.
