Academician Duraković: University of Sarajevo and the Unreasonable Force of Bureaucracy

By: Academician Esad Duraković

The Law on Higher Education of Sarajevo Canton (ZOVKS) is changed very often. In the last eight years, it has been changed for the fourth time. This fact alone is sufficiently indicative: higher education, by its very nature, should be a fairly stable constant, although not permanent, of course. Such frequent changes to ZOVKS testify to two things, among others. First, the changes that ZOVKS is subjected to so often are not of sufficient quality, so the need for its refinement is allegedly constantly arising. However, it is reasonable to assume (and this does not conflict with the previous fact) that almost every new government considers itself competent and called upon to "regulate" the law, but also to place UNSA under optimal supervision, even under its control, with its "regulation". And thus, a new serious problem is created: frequent and incompetent changes to the Law are actually dramatically counterproductive, as they destabilize precisely that significant factor of society through frequent attacks, which should be relatively stable, as a benchmark, cohesive at the societal level, and not a constant subject of party particularisms and attacks.

In this way, confusion actually becomes constant.

The so-called "Bologna Process", or system, is generally a serious diversion in the higher education system, especially here, given the essentially reductionist and devastating way it is implemented. Bologna is extremely destructive and inferior here compared to the previous higher education system, which could have been improved differently. However, that matter is already settled, unfortunately.

However, these days there is a new Draft Law on Higher Education in public discussion at UNSA. It could be, judging by the current version of the text, worse than the previous ones, which is not surprising given the inertia I pointed out in the first paragraph. It is not possible in such a text, which must be adapted to its medium, to deal with the Draft ZOVKS in detail, but I will point out the most important, principled and unacceptable mistakes in relation to it.

First, the Law insists on the bureaucratization of higher education, and in many ways. This is not surprising if one considers that the Bologna system here is generally eminently bureaucratic, and its implementation requires constant growth of bureaucracy, while at the same time, the rejuvenation of UNSA's staff, which is its very soul, is largely thwarted. Such an approach leads to its UNSA. This is an excessively serious legal and general societal deviation. Or, today, at UNSA, there is an insistence on passing almost at any cost, so that lecturers have turned into examiners, and studies are often reduced to the level of tests. The focus has been radically shifted: in numerous and constant so-called knowledge checks, time and the sense of acquiring knowledge are lost. This is absolutely wrong.

Second, but related to the previous "mentality of bureaucracy", the autonomy of the University is usurped precisely by the bureaucratic structures of the Government, structures that, as a rule, do not understand the essence of higher education, the core of study, and therefore do not allow it to develop within itself – as the most enlightened part of society and as its driving force. In relation to this, I will mention two main mechanisms of usurpation of autonomy here.

a) The Government forms the Management Board by appointing the majority of members from its own ranks, and the decisions of the MB are made by a simple majority, which means that the Government can always outvote the members elected by the UNSA Senate and make decisions that conflict with the interests of UNSA, or that do not understand the essence of higher education and the processes in science. In other words, the Government has a mechanism for complete control of UNSA, which further means that its autonomy is abolished, and it is not surprising that previous governments cared more about every utility company than about UNSA. Neither HDZ nor SNSD are to blame for this deviation (extremely dangerous for the future of society) in Sarajevo.

(In 2014, I left the UNSA Management Board because it was not allowed for the Rules of Procedure to be formulated in such a way that decisions could not always be made by a simple majority, as the majority of members were those appointed by the Government. However, if at least two more members of the MB had resigned with me, we would have caused a crisis, and there would have been a possibility to amend the Rules of Procedure differently and to limit the Government's reign of terror.)

b) The Draft Law – in an atmosphere of general bureaucratization of society and following its own inertia and logic – strongly limits the autonomy of the University at yet another level. Namely, it gives surprisingly little freedom to higher education institutions; moreover, it incompetently regulates matters in individual higher education institutions in numerous aspects. Each higher education institution best knows its scientific and professional specificities – precisely on this basis they rest! – so it would be necessary and reasonable to allow them to regulate these specificities, since these institutions are the most competent for their specificities as such, while, of course, everything happens within a WIDE FRAMEWORK OF THE LAW. Therefore, it is astonishing how many illogicalities, clumsiness, inconsistencies, and striking improvisations are in the Draft.

Thus, in relation to the Draft of this Law as well, what is unfortunately already known is shown:

Power as such is insatiable, and that is its curse: it will bring under control everything it can; its main mechanism for achieving this is the unreasonable force of bureaucracy, and this is essentially in conflict with the universe, with the spirit of academia.

The Senate of the University and university professors in general cannot agree to such arrogance because it is – it must be repeated at the end – in fundamental conflict with the very being of academia, with the universe.