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Romania calls on EUA help to splitsector7 APRIL 2011 | BYMATTHEW
REISZ
Broad reforms will see different missions attract varying levels
of funding.Matthew Reisz reports
The government of Romania has secured the support of the
European University Association (EUA)to institute a wide-ranging
reform of its higher education system.
At the heart of the proposals is a plan to group the country's
54 public universities and approximately40 accredited private
universities into three separate groups: teaching-focused
institutions; thoseoriented towards both teaching and research; and
research-intensive institutions.
The state would guarantee funding for bachelor's degrees in the
first group, up to master's level inthe second, and up to doctoral
level in the third.
Although "education-centred" universities in the first group
could continue to offer master'sprogrammes, the government would
not be obliged to fund them, but could take "quality factors"into
account when deciding whether to do so.
Daniel Funeriu, the Romanian minister of education, research and
innovation, told Times HigherEducation that the central aim was to
achieve "a concentration of resources on the specific strengthsof
each university".
He added that he wanted the assessment of universities to
determine their category to be conductedby a foreign team "so as to
make it immune to interference".
The EUA agreed to take on this role, and put together an
international expert group under theleadership of Lesley Wilson,
its secretary general. The official evaluation process was launched
on 25March.
In the first instance, institutions will be asked to state which
group they believe they belong to, and toprovide or confirm
supporting data.
"Universities need to be really clear what they are for, what
their focus is - and then be supported,"said Ms Wilson.
"After a rather rapid grouping exercise, which will be completed
within six months, we will work withthe universities to help them
think through their missions and build on them, something where
we
have experience and expertise."
This three-year process of improving quality and performance
will draw on evaluation programmesthat the EUA has already carried
out in Portugal, Slovakia and the Republic of Ireland. The
Czechministry of education is presently carrying out a similar
exercise.
The Romanian government, in the meantime, will carry out
assessments of individual programmesto determine the number of
funded places it can support.
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"The current system gives too much discretionary power to the
ministry," Mr Funeriu said.
"There is not enough validated data on which financial decisions
can be made. We want to achievemore efficient resource allocation
based on the quality of courses and the specific missions
ofdifferent universities."
But achieving clarity and value for money are not the only
goals.
Mr Funeriu said: "The education system is the brain of the
country, and we want to make oursinternationally competitive. We
had far more international students before 1989 (the year
thatmarked the end of Nicolae Ceausescu's Communist regime) and we
are keen to reverse the decline
we have seen since then.
"We also want to make our higher education system more
attractive to Romanian academicscurrently working outside Romania -
it's one of the keys to government policy to get that right."
[email protected].
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/415696.article
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