Key Flaws in the Proposed Law on Higher Education in Sarajevo Canton

The Draft Law on Higher Education in Sarajevo Canton will be put to a vote before the Assembly of Sarajevo Canton today.

The KS Government believes that the new law will improve higher education in Sarajevo. On the other hand, the academic community warns of a large number of flaws in the Government's Law, which will undermine the University of Sarajevo for the profit of the owners of several private faculties.

Patria highlights the most important criticisms that the academic community has directed at the Government's Draft Law on Higher Education in KS, which have been heard in recent weeks:

Who Can Sign Student Diplomas

If the goal of the new Law on Higher Education is to improve the field of education, the liberalization of conditions compared to the existing law regarding who can sign student diplomas must not be allowed.

According to the current Law on Higher Education in Sarajevo Canton, the dean of a faculty must be at least an associate professor. According to the Draft Law on Higher Education, which will be before the deputies in the KS Assembly, faculty deans will also be able to be assistant professors.
One can become an assistant professor the day after obtaining a doctorate. This is common practice. The government has not provided a valid answer as to why the criteria for electing deans at public and private faculties are being lowered. The government avoided stating that this liberalization favors private universities, especially those that barely have one or two professors employed as associate or full professors.

A significant portion of private faculties do not engage in staff development at all, as it is too large an investment. It is most often said that a significant portion of private faculties exclusively serve to generate profit for their owners. Until now, even such faculties had to have at least a few professors in higher positions. If the Law on Higher Education of KS is adopted without further amendments, such faculties will no longer have to meet even the minimum requirements.

The proposed law unnecessarily lowers the criteria for electing university rectors as well. The lowering of criteria applies to private but not to state universities. If the submitted amendments are incorporated into the Law on Higher Education, the rector responsible for the legality of the entire academic process will be able to be exempted from the conditions that the rector of public institutions must meet at private universities.

The proposed Law on Higher Education in KS stipulates that private universities regulate the election of rectors at private universities through their own acts.

With this move, the KS Ministry of Education clearly communicates that they are not concerned with the quality of individuals leading private universities.

Buying Diplomas

While the battle is being fought to scrutinize public institutions, i.e., UNSA, and to examine every transaction at the public university, the new law exempts private universities from these responsibilities. The argument is that private founders should have greater freedom to manage their universities. This may be justified in the domain of investments and financial operations, but not in the part of managing academic affairs. There is no valid argument why academic management and the question of who is qualified to perform it should differ between private and public universities.

If there is talk of the proliferation and sale of diplomas at private universities, then the conditions and standards for guaranteeing that same academic process should be even more rigorous at private universities where the profit motive of the owners motivates them to 'sell' diplomas.

Qualified deans and rectors, or at least the same rigorous conditions for their election, are the only guarantee that private owners will not more easily manipulate the academic process through compliant deans and rectors.

Academic staff at private universities need the protection of the legislator that the same standards will be applied to them and that they are not at the mercy of the private owner.

Equal treatment before the law in the promotion and election of those who manage the process is only a small but very important step towards achieving this goal.

Accommodating private owners by making it easier for them to find compliant individuals to work for them is not in the interest of society. Profit and competition, yes; different criteria for the academic product and its creation, no.

Satellite/Dislocated Departments

The Law on Higher Education defines the competencies of the KS Assembly to give consent to a higher education institution based outside the Canton to open a department within the Canton. It also defines the Government's competence to make a decision determining the costs of the procedure, paid by the higher education institution registered outside the Canton, for establishing dislocated departments within the Canton.

The law no longer specifically addresses this complex challenge and the question of how to ensure this does not become a subject of manipulation. If this is a way for other universities to be accessible for obtaining diplomas without having to drive outside the Canton, then it is a truly dangerous move that will leave KS in ten years as a place where universities are registered and regulated in places where they can more easily evade inspections that are easier to manipulate, while selling diplomas here.

Why is the possibility of dislocated departments even left open if the regulation later focuses on those institutions registered within the Canton?

The proposed Law on Higher Education does not have enough obstacles to prevent dislocated departments from becoming mere diploma mills.

The least that can be done is to create a special treatment in the regulation of satellite departments. To guarantee that satellite departments become and must, at all times, meet the same conditions as any other higher education institution in Sarajevo Canton. That is, they must have premises, academic staff physically present in Sarajevo Canton, and a teaching process that can be verified in real-time at any moment and will be subject to the scrutiny of the ministry and relevant inspections in Sarajevo Canton. Then it is an institution like any other in KS. The entire teaching process must take place in KS.

All resources related to teaching in Sarajevo must be listed and verifiable at all times. Therefore, it will be necessary for such satellite departments to be treated as if they were registered in KS for their operations. They will only carry the name of registration in some other canton or country. They cannot show resources or sell distance learning diplomas through branches in Sarajevo. For that, they do not need satellite departments. For such a thing, students can register in another country or another canton.

Consent for Engagement at Another Higher Education Institution

The current legal solution states that the head of an organizational unit is obliged to give consent for engagement at another higher education institution if they are fulfilling their work obligations. This is a paradox. The practice at prestigious universities is that higher education institutions retain their staff, and it is considered a violation of the employer's interest for their employee to work for a competitor. This protects the particular interest of academic staff members so that they can continue to work in several places. This is completely contrary to international practice, i.e., in systems that foster academic excellence. It encourages the engagement of academic staff outside the university, which benefits social engagement, but never for academic staff to work at another institution as lecturers or researchers.

This does not contribute to the interest of students, who would benefit more from the socially useful activities of academic staff, but it does not mean relocating professors and stretching their time between several higher education institutions.

Therefore, applying world practices in this area would be desirable, rather than adapting the law to the particular interest of professors serving public and private universities.

The separation of academic staff between institutions would also help build the capacity of academic staff, as private universities have no motivation to have their own staff when they can borrow them from public ones. The financial interest of private university owners and some professors has overridden the broader social interest.

INVESTIGATE the practice at prestigious universities – it is inconceivable to work at two universities, just as it is inconceivable to work at two competing companies as a marketing manager.

Membership in the Scientific-Teaching Council

In the article of the law that states "Academic staff who are employed...", the phrase "full-time employment" is intentionally omitted, as at some private universities, with only one hour registered at that institution, they achieve equal participation in the council's work as those who are employed full-time... Thus, those who sit on two chairs become members of councils at institutions that would otherwise not have enough employees and council members because they have two or three full-time teachers... If the quality of the educational process is to be improved and private universities are to be prevented from operating without full-time teachers, this article of the law should have set the condition that council members are academic staff employed full-time.

The world does not recognize the concept that someone can be called academic staff or an academic if they are not an academic on a full-time basis.

The proposed Law on Higher Education in KS introduces the concept of an academic with one hour registered in their work book for academic purposes. This is discrimination against people who have dedicated their lives to academia, but also a lowering of standards in the field of education.