Toms Baumanis, Vice-Rector for Administration and Development: What Are the Public Benefits of the Higher Education Reform?

18 February 2021 will mark one year since the Cabinet of Ministers approved the conceptual report “On the Change of the Internal Governance Model of Higher Education Institutions”. The Ministry of Education and Science has announced that the report is bringing in a new era in higher education in Latvia. It is hoped that this will place Latvian universities among the world's top 500 universities in the coming years.

The Ministry of Education and Science has proposed a new governance model as the primary solution - to form councils, appoint rectors, reduce senates' functions, and eliminate higher education institutions’ constitutional meetings, thus introducing direct administration to universities. Looking at other European countries it can be seen that universities are not under the direct authority of ministries anywhere.

It took a year of hard work to make all the amendments to the Law on Higher Education Institutions. The law will implement the changes outlined in the conceptual report. One year is a sufficiently long period of time to have assessed and asked whether the parties involved have a common understanding of the intentions laid out in the report. Are the planned changes really aimed only at changing the governance of higher education institutions? Is a broader approach to the reform required?

Political goals, mistakes, and bureaucratic hurdles

Universities and other representatives from the sector, such as employers, expected the reform to be much broader in scope. For example, that a vision for the future of higher education would be clearly defined, that a long-term development strategy would be developed in conjunction with the National Development Plan 2021–2027, that achievable goals and quality criteria would be defined, and that funding would be allocated. Ultimately, there was a need for a broader consensus on how to increase the overall capacity and performance of higher education and research institutions.

Unfortunately, discussions about the Law on Higher Education Institutions have constantly come up against questions regarding the influence, composition, or authority of management boards. According to plans by the Ministry of Education and Science, these boards would receive their authorisation through the reduction of the authority of the democratically formed governing bodies of higher education institutions, for example, by abolishing the constitutional assembly or weakening the senate. Many other issues have remained in the background of these discussions. 

Universities’ ability to attract international students has been criticised especially frequently. The international student admissions process is often complicated by bureaucracy. For example, higher education institutions are not given the opportunity to implement procedures to recognise international applicants’ academic certificates independently. During the COVID-19 crisis, when every organisation is considering post-pandemic development scenarios and working on new business strategies, the Ministry of Education and Science recommends that universities extend the duration of their existing strategies until the councils have been established. Recommendations like this do not strengthen universities, but, on the contrary, contribute to their bureaucratic dependence and inability to take action.

The Ministry of Education and Science should have been the coordinating institution to advance the Law on Higher Education Institutions, but the Ministry has not been able to obtain the unanimous support of all parties involved. Unfortunately, the Ministry's suggestions are not connected to the reality in Latvia. The draft law was rejected both by organisations from the sector and the Saeima’s Law Bureau. As a result, members of the Saeima’s Education, Culture and Science Committee have selflessly been working on amendments to the Law on Higher Education Institutions for nine months, but they are still far from being completed. The lack of a common understanding has resulted in more than 300 suggestions regarding higher education reform. Through these you can see efforts to make university governance as political as possible, which is not typical for higher education systems in Europe.

A broader view of the reform

Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) calls for a much broader view of higher education reform. It should be noted that universities in Europe are not subject to the ministries of education and science of their countries. European universities are governed by a checks and balances principle ensuring that decisions are taken in the interests of the organisation itself. The balance of power is created by a university’s constitutional assembly, council, rector, and senate. In this model, each governing body has its own meaning, role, and functions. The universities’ governing boards should be formed as apolitical and professional bodies that make decisions in the interests of the organisation, not politicians. OECD requirements for good corporate governance must be extended to universities as well. These requirements call for more independent board members on supervisory boards than dependent ones, not to mention politicians or civil servants.

Universities need more funding

Very little is said about funding for universities in connection with the university reform, as if the funding that is available does not have an effect on universities’ performance. For example, state funding for the University of Tartu is equal to the total state funding for all higher education institutions in Latvia - approximately 200m euros per year! I would like to add that Latvian higher education institutions attract most of their financial resources from external sources. The current results have been achieved in conditions of depleted funding, regardless of Latvian higher education institutions’ governance model. In addition, what higher education export contributes to the Latvian economy is approaching 1% of GDP. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the export of education without adequate state funding is an insufficient resource for Latvian universities to be able to enter the top 500 of the world's higher education institutions on their own. The proper classification of higher education institutions is embedded into the amendments to the Law on Higher Education Institutions, but without receiving the relevant state funding, this loses its meaning.

Addressing the lack of human resources

The aim of the reform is to develop higher education institutions by attracting more students, international guest professors and researchers, as well as by getting more involved in public and commercial research. The COVID-19 crisis calls for decisive action to stimulate the export potential of higher education and science by allocating funds to universities from EU Recovery and Resilience Facility and ERDF funds. It can be observed that the higher education reform plans are detached from the National Development Plan, which outlines that attracting doctors in line with the average EU level to state-funded healthcare services is one of the challenges to providing quality health care services. Also, one of the target indicators of the National Development Plan is a gradual increase in the number of practising physicians per 100,000 inhabitants. There is currently a shortage of 1,000 doctors and 3,500 nurses in Latvia. The pandemic has highlighted how critical these shortages in healthcare are. Challenges to healthcare facilities posed by COVID-19 notwithstanding, there is a need to plan to restore the number of healthcare workers. The next step is to increase the number of state-funded study places in medicine, nursing, and residency.

How will society benefit from the higher education reform? Will the governance model without funding create higher quality education? Will the reform help develop Latvian universities? Latvian society needs a higher education reform that provides students with an internationally competitive education, creates well-paid jobs at universities, and promotes science and innovation. It must be a reform that addresses human resources, at least in sectors such as healthcare and medicine, information technology, and engineering.