Problems of B&H Higher Education
A student in Bosnia and Herzegovina may learn how to defraud the school’s money and yet keep his seat in the Dean’s Office. Will learn all about sexual harassment there is to know, how to pay for his grades...? He/she will learn all that he shouldn’t be able to learn at a higher education institution.
The „right” of the university professors to seek sexual favours for passing grades is illustrated by the fact the 37.4% of the B&H students reported that they were sexually harassed, while three out of five students polled say that they know somebody who was submitted to some form of sexual harassment. To solve these problems we don’t need a Law on Higher Education, which, in all fairness, we don’t have. Last year, plans were made to pass an “umbrella law” on national level, with the obligation to bring the entity legislation in compliance with. As with the majority of things needing harmonization in B&H, nothing came out of it. One positive development is that Bosnia and Herzegovina signed the Bologna Declaration. The curricula for the first year of studies were changed, the studies were shortened to four years (apart from the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry), the two semester subjects were turned into single semester, facultative subjects were introduced... Nonetheless, the question remains, what is the Bologna Declaration? According to the poll conducted by the Portal, 20.4 percent of the polled doesn’t know what the Bologna Declaration is? 32.3 percent has “heard about it”, 39.8 percent knows the basic directions, and only 7.5 percent have read the Declaration and knows exactly what it is about. Should we find it surprising, then, that Austria, the most popular foreign destination for B&H students to continue their studies, requested termination of the reciprocity agreement? About two thousand Bosnian students study in Austria, all expenses covered. Should they decide to return home after they complete the education, we would have well educated young experts. At the same time, only two Austrian citizens study in Bosnia. When they return to Austria, should they decide to do so, they will carry the knowledge of the abuses we mentioned before. That transfer of knowledge may lead to a situation when our “highly progressive” higher education will not be unique in the world. |
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