Questioning the Higher Education of a Country in Transition on its Way to the Knowledge Economy
Palmira Jucevičienė, Kaunas University of Technology
Rimantas Vaitkus, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Hamburg, 17-20 September 2003
The beginning of the 21 century can be characterized by the competition that is taking place among the states on their way to knowledge economy. It is already quite obvious that their economic success will be directly based on the production, distribution and use of knowledge and information. Thus, the importance of science system (in the broadest sense) and higher education is greater than ever.
This is quite a special race. One has to take into account the acceleration rate or, in other words, certain first mover’s advantage that are enjoyed by the Western countries due too their earlier start. Meanwhile, the latecomers, especially the countries in transition are trying to catch up with this high-speed train.
How realistic are the possibilities of catch-up? It is a wide known fact that the knowledge economy is accompanied by the contemporary processes of globalization that create mega-level opportunities for speeding up the development of the knowledge economy in a particular country. At the same time, globalization can cause multiple challenges to many small newly-emerged market economy countries. D. Robertson (2000) notes that entire nations are learning the new behavioral patterns at times of globalization, not to mention the small states...
The small countries in-transition, such as the Baltic states face a particular need to make an intelligent use of the globalization opportunities and at the same time avoiding the global traps to national identity and resources.
What do these countries have to learn to become successful knowledge economies? First of all, how to obtain the potential to be treated as partners rather than ‘third world’ countries by their global counterparts? On the other hand, how to avoid an excessive drain (e.g. the brain-drain) of the newly acquired potential from a small country in a globalised environment?
Most authors seek an answer to the first question – how to obtain the necessary potential – by looking into the higher education. It is higher education in general and universities in particular that are considered as knowledge and competence producing institution. The universities have always been the agents of globalization. These activities are especially on the rise since the end of the 20th century (Sh.Rothblatt, 2000) with the diffusion of information and knowledge by all academic activities (L.Soete, 2001).
Many Western researchers analyze the question what the higher education and particularly the universities should look like so that this institution could execute its facilitator mission in the knowledge society and economy (B.R. Clark, 1995, 1998; P.Scott, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, R.Barnett, 1994, 2000, D.Bridges, 2000, et al.). The authors of the countries in transition still pay more attention to the reform of higher education (P.Jucevičienė (1999, 2000), D.Gudaitytė (2002), A.Poškienė (2002), L.Kraujutaitytė (2002), V.Šveikauskas (2000) et al.), i.e. how to acquire those qualities in higher education that would correspond to the European and global trends in higher education, meet the country’s demand for modern qualifications, reflect and foster its national culture at the same time enabling its researchers effectively participate in international academic community. However, the question what essential qualities of higher education are at the source of the development of transition country (particularly a small one) into knowledge economy was not yet analysed. Are there any threats in the power of this source and, if so, what are they? How not only overcome them, but turn them into driver of knowledge economy? These are the questions to be addressed in our article.
The article aims to reveal the features of higher education that could be able to facilitate successful development of knowledge economy in the country in transition.
We will rely on the case study of Lithuania – a small country with 3.5 million inhabitants as well as with a successful track record of transition as marked by its future membership in the EU (in 2004) and one of the world’s fastest growing economies (9,1 per cent GDP growth in I Q 2003).
The article consists of two parts.
In the first part of our work, we will try to show what qualities of higher education enable country in transition to enter the race towards the knowledge economy in partnership with the developed countries.
In the second part, we will not only look into reflections of these qualities in the Lithuanian higher education under reform, but will also reveal the paradox of this achieved quality, as illustrated by an example of brain drain. We will comment the results of the pilot survey on brain-drain carried out by one of the authors of this article, trying to analyse in-depth the reasons of this paradox. At the end of this part, we will attempt to emphasize the especially important quality of higher education in small state in-transition that would defuse the aforementioned paradox and help to solve the dilemma of effective participation in globalization without diluting its national identity and economic interests.
1. The qualities of higher education – for the race towards knowledge economy
The core methodological approach of this chapter that will help identify the qualities of higher education, facilitates country on its way to the knowledge economy is based on G. Denlanty’s (2001) observations presented in his book ‘Challenging Knowledge: The University in the Knowledge Society”.
[Although]… the university is losing its role as the site of knowledge production, it is still one of the most important producers of knowledge, … but… it is not the main user of knowledge. (…) The knowledge society refers to a situation in which knowledge is being used to produce knowledge and the conditions of knowledge production are no longer controlled by the mode of knowledge itself. (…) Cognitive processes not only produce knowledge as content, but also give rise to new cognitive structures and identities…
G. Delanty, 2001: 152
It means that the social space for knowledge production is expanding. It also reveals the growing importance of praxis. This is where scientific knowledge encounters practice, primarily, in a practitioner’s mind, what gives birth to a personal knowing that is implicit. However, only when this implicit knowing becomes explicit knowledge can we talk about knowledge in-use that is already different from the basic knowledge.
University which seeks to get a new power in the knowledge economy and to have an impact on the development of knowledge society, has to obtain three kinds of communicative interconnecting:
(1) new links between the higher education and society;
(2)new links between the sciences;
(3)changing relations between the higher education and the state.
1.1. New links between the higher education and society
More than a decade ago, R.Barnett (1990) wrote about the reality of a changing relationship between higher education and society. This topic has been joined by more and more authors who focus on the changing role of universities, driven by the need to adapt to social change, be more responsive to the needs of society, and, probably, most sophisticatedly, to understand that higher education has no monopoly of expertise, but has to take part in a wide public discourse (G. Delanty, 2001: 8).
As an epistemological background, expressing new links between higher education and society, is Mode 2 of knowledge production, which, according to M. Gibbons, is a new model of knowledge creation, echoing the reality of contemporary human life.
Mode 1. The complex of ideas, methods, values and norms that has grown up to control the diffusion of the Newtonian model of science to more and more fields of enquiry and ensure its compliance with what is considered sound scientific practice.
Mode 2. Knowledge production carried out in the context of application and marked by its: transdisciplinarity; heterogeneity; organizational heterarchy and transience; social accountability and reflexivity; and quality control which emphasizes context-and use-dependence. Results from the parallel expansion of knowledge producers and users in society.
M.Gibbons et al., 1995:167
As a matter of fact, the difference between traditional knowledge production, a Newtonian model (Mode 1, in the words of Gibbons), and the new Mode 2, expresses the basic shift in understanding the creation of knowledge. At the same time, it acknowledges equal co-existence of Mode 1 and Mode 2 in knowledge production.
This opening requires not only a degree of motivation from universities, but primarily new scientific competence through the application of a new learning concept in knowledge creation, supported by the action science theories of Ch. Argyris and his colleagues (1985).
This problem has to be addressed both by the Western countries and the countries in transition; if solved, this would result in a new competence of higher education.
The novelty of the link between higher education and society is reflected by the responsiveness of higher education to the society’s needs. Should the higher education be regarded as a facilitator to the knowledge society development, then we should emphasize its ability to produce many highly competent professionals, mostly the knowledge workers.
Such a situation calls for a mass education, a diversification of higher education and, as a result, for a changed structure of the higher education system (what structure goes well with what country: binary, unified or stratified?). It also calls for a new approach to study programmes.
Professional competence requirements, posed by the knowledge economy, stipulate the emergence of competence-based programmes. They stress the ability to act in real situations by implementing original cognitive structures and supporting professional qualifications with personal traits and values, particularly, with the social values. But the implementation of a competence-based study programmes system does not mean that all the programmes are oriented solely to the highest competence level. The higher education system has to educate many professionals of various competences. Of course, among them – the highest-level knowledge workers. In a standard perception, especially among the natural scientists, these are researchers. In the knowledge economy, however, it is not about them alone; they even do not come first. M. Gibbons and colleagues refer to these professionals of outstanding competence as symbolic analysts, people who work with symbols, concepts, theories, models, and data, produced by others in diverse locations and configure them into new combinations (Gibbons, M. Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., 1994: 84).
All of the aforementioned are factors that indicate the need to develop internal processes of higher education. It means its purposeful opening to the public, so that it becomes an effective source for the development of the knowledge economy and society.
However, in the case of the country in transition, the factors mentioned above are not sufficient. The opening up of higher education should also mean making public use of its international experience and opportunities. In the case of countries in transition, the internationalization of higher education itself is of crucial importance, as these countries for almost half a century have been separated by the ‘Iron Curtain’. So, higher education still needs to be assisted at its internationalization. M. van der Wende (1997: 19) perceives this internationalization as “any systematic, sustained effort aimed at making higher education (more) responsive to the requirements and challenges related to the globalization of societies, economy and labour markets”. For most countries, and especially the Central and Eastern European states it means the approximation of degree system, the introduction of multicultural and European dimensions in study programmes, increasing the teachers and students’ mobility etc.
However, we consider that one of the most important factors behind the internationalization of higher education in the transition countries is knowledge internationalization. We thereby mean the approximation of national thesaurus at least with the thesauruses of main science languages, particularly with the European thesaurus. This procedure of approximation is linked with the production of new knowledge by seeking the synergy of distinct Eastern and Western European knowledge thesauruses (P. Jucevičienė, 2000).
1.2.New links between sciences
According to R. Barnett (2000), the activities of individuals and organizations are growing in their complexity. They are based not only on the knowledge created by academicians, but also the knowledge that comes from practice, i.e. generated by the cognitive structures of practicing individuals and organizations. R. Barnett (2000: 6) refers to such situation as supercomplexity, and explains the term through the example of medical doctor. When the doctor is faced with many types of drugs and instruments in the medical market, he is in a situation of complexity. It exists when an individual is faced with a surfeit of information, knowledge or theoretical frames within one’s immediate situation.
However, a contemporary physician fulfils a multitude of tasks that are not directly related with his professional cognitive or operational actions. Doctor is both a member of his organization, the consumer of resources and the provider of medical services. These activities are subject to managerial disciplines. The doctor’s legal relations with patients is subject to law discipline. And what about the questions of ethics? So nowadays the doctors are working not in the situation of complexity, but supercomplexity, at the same time handling multiple frames of understanding and action. This multiplication of frameworks has been called by the term supercomplexity (R.Barnett, 2000).
The knowledge workers will perform in such situations of supercomplexity. Therefore, if the higher education seeks to be a source of knowledge society and economy development, it has to ensure the cross-disciplinary communication between disciplines and sciences. All this changes the internal structure of universities (G.Delandy, 2001: 8).
These changes are conceptual and reflect the idea of multiversity where multidisciplinarity is achieved by emphasizing the links between the departments and researchers from different disciplines through common work on multidisciplinary research and study projects, analysis of supercomplex situations, consulting the professionals in such type of situations.
1.3.Changing relations between the higher education and the state
This changing relationship is linked with the growing role of the state as regulator of the university performance. It is more true about the European than American higher education, the latter more influenced by the market. However, this is a very relevant problem to the countries in transition.
First and foremost, it is the state-level strategy to develop the knowledge economy, what is very understandable. The state has to mobilize its resources and higher education is one of them. It means that on the state level HE reforms are influenced via financial and managerial measures. However, as the higher education and particularly the universities reach the stage of effective facilitator to knowledge economy/knowledge society processes, it would be misleading to rely on the strict outside regulatory mechanisms. It is widely known that the university autonomy as well as the academic freedom are two necessary preconditions for ensuring the critical thinking and knowledge creation at the universities. Once the limits of constructive regulation are crossed, these conditions may be broken. So the question – how to strike a right balance between the regulation of institutions of higher education, especially in the course of reform of higher education, and institutional autonomy, i.e. its borders, could apparently have only one answer: by an open dialogue between the state and the university.
- Features of Lithuanian Higher Education, as a Knowledge Economy Development Facilitator: a Paradox of First Successes
In order to find out the status of the reformed Lithuanian higher education, a knowledge economy development facilitator, we will systematically review the features of higher education as a knowledge economy development facilitator, which have been singled out in the first part of the article. The features are listed and reflected on in Table 1.
Table 1. Higher Education as a Knowledge Economy Facilitator: Reflection of the Case of Lithuania
Features of the facilitator / Reflection on the situation of Lithuanian higher education / Questions to be answered1.1. New links between higher education and society:
- Universities recognize the value of knowledge created not only by Mode 1, but also by Mode 2
What managerial solutions should be introduced in the spaces of higher education and innovation in order to promote Mode 2?
Continued
- Emphasis on higher education:
(ii) Structure of higher education system
(iii) Types of study programmes / Number of students in the age group between 19 and 24:
In 2001 – 34,1%;
In 2002 – 39,9%;
In 2003 – 48,4%.
Diversified structure (19 universities and 24 colleges); a binary structure has been declared.
Universities hold academic programmes, and colleges have professional programmes. Kaunas University of Technology is the only holder of a competence-based programme (in teacher education). / Don’t these quotas impair the quality, having in mind limited financing of higher education (for e.g. 4,4 % of the national budget in 2001) and the increasing numbers of higher education colleges springing from technical schools?
Doesn’t the absence of a unified structure retard the process of higher education becoming an empowering facilitator?
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to start pedagogization of universities (Paris, Higher Education conference idea), preparing university teachers able to create and implement competence-based programmes?
- Stress on education of knowledge workers:
(ii) Symbolic analysts / About 150-200 new PhD holders are prepared every year, when there is a need of 600 approximately.
Preparation of symbolic analysts could be traced in Master’s studies (ratio of Master’s students comparing to Bachelor students is 1:5); study programmes lack epistemological knowledge enabling application of Mode 2. / Are the numbers of PhD and Master’s degree holders sufficient in Lithuania?
Is limitation to the conceptions of preparing Doctors of science and Master’s of science reasonable? Is a Doctor and Master in profession not necessary?
Shouldn’t the quality of preparing PhD holders be improved? Particularly, are the questions of science philosophy and methodology emphasized enough in doctoral studies?
Continued