Let's just cancel it. state universities? Or should we at least privatize those recruitment centers for anarchists and radical leftists who otherwise serve no other purpose? And why stop there, secondary and primary schools should be privatized as well!
So he kind of suggested it. Vladimir Djukanovic, progressive MP, lawyer, journalist when necessary, owner of three penthouses in Voždovac and, in general, a man of a thousand trades. But above all, a man who, one would say, has permission to release trial balloons on behalf of the regime.
Đukanović ironically called on students to persevere in the blockades as long as possible and thus abolish state universities.
"We have to create as much competition as possible, to have as many universities as possible, so that the faculties compete in the quality of the curriculum and there is no longer a system; radio, not radio - the radio plays to me", said Đukanović in an article for "Politika".
AN ATTACK ON THE UNIVERSITY
The interlocutors of "Vremen" make a distinction here - one is the current attack by the regime on disobedient universities, and the other is the fundamental question of whether higher education should be more state-owned or more private.
As for the first, it culminated a few days ago when the outgoing Government passed a decree according to which university teachers are no longer paid for 20 hours of teaching and 20 hours of research per week, but now the ratio is 35 to 5 in favor of teaching. Since there are no classes, it turns out that professors will receive only 12,5 percent of their salary.
Added to this was the call by Minister Darko Glišić, the chief progressive officer in the government of Aleksandar Vučić, to urgently arrest the rector of Belgrade University (BU) Vladan Đokić. In a bizarre performance, Glišić accused Đokić of making tens of thousands of students who want to study unhappy and that he planned to overthrow the state and become prime minister.
"I understand what the idea is, since the government cannot currently control the faculties", says Ljubodrag Savić, a professor at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade, about the mention of the privatization of the faculties. "Political confrontations exist in every country, but we try to solve these problems in an inadequate way."
The former rector of BU Ivanka Popović is not surprised by the new attack on the university, although she says that the talk about "privatization" is too demagogic even for the circumstances in Serbia. And yet "it is in the spirit of what the ruling party has been doing for a very long time".
"Just as they want to privatize healthcare, they also want to privatize education, with the aim of making money. They do not understand that the right to education is a basic right and there is probably no country in the world that does not have a state education system," she told "Vreme".
OPENING THE DOORS TO EXHIBITIONS
Private universities in Serbia already have a wide field - they have been present for a long time, they have more and more students (see box). And yet this government proposed a law according to which foreign universities could open branches in Serbia without the process of accreditation before domestic bodies. Such a law would be spicy at any time, and especially when it was sent to the Assembly - barely a week after the canopy crushed people in Novi Sad in November of last year.
A revolt by universities and the academic public prevented the legislation, but few doubt that the draft is in the drawer waiting for someone better times for the government to get out again.
Economist Ivan Nikolić sees it from the perspective of the market - why not increase the faculty's "offer" so that students can choose? He says that there is a deep-rooted prejudice that private faculties are initially worse than state ones, and this may not be true. "We are in the initial phase of the development of private education, it takes time and generations of students to improve the quality of private education," he adds.
Admittedly, that image was acquired by the oldest private faculties, such as the University of the Karić brothers or Megatrend, which were often seen as "diploma printers" and the favorite place of the political caste when they want to show off even their doctorates.
Ten years ago, it was discovered that Megatrend, the darling of the bon vivant and eternal rector Mica Jovanović, has an office in London that is nothing more than a mailbox, and that the diplomas "acquired" there are washed in Serbia, where they are recognized. And nothing to anyone.
Professor Savić knows that not all private faculties are the same. "There are some private faculties that are of better quality than the state ones, but unfortunately there are a large number of private faculties that do not actually educate many people, but their goal is profit, which is generally not the case with state faculties," he says.
In the West, private colleges are often more prestigious - but the tuition fees are exorbitant. In countries in the so-called "transition", says Savić, this is not the case: "The difference in quality is large because there is no adequate control. It does not mean that private companies cannot be much better, but this is a transitional time, in which people first take a position in the state administration, and then very quickly graduate from university and obtain the diploma that is expected of them."
KNOWLEDGE AS A COMMODITY
Đorđe Pavićević is a triple opponent of the idea of private faculties - first as a professor at the state Faculty of Political Sciences, then as an opposition member of the Green-Left Front and finally from the left-wing conviction that knowledge should not be treated as a commodity.
"Those who don't like the university want to destroy it, for petty political reasons, even though the university has existed for more than two hundred years. Mentioning the privatization of the faculty is an attempt to put everything in society under control, by using the oligarchy to become the boss of the whole of Serbia," Pavićević told Vreme.
He points out that most private universities "serve to issue diplomas" without any scientific production. It doesn't have to be that way, he says, but it would take decades to get private education in order.
"European countries can hardly function without a public education system. The idea that education is a commodity is problematic anyway, and in such circumstances, science and education would only suffer," adds Pavićević.
Although the state has an influence on the choice of rectors of state universities and deans of faculties - especially since the progressives subverted the student parliaments with sleight of hand - paradoxically, there is even greater control over private universities.
The burning student rebellion was joined by students from many private colleges who blockaded their institutions in one way or another. But the support of the majority of the professors there, and especially the management of the faculty, was conspicuously absent.
WHO DEFENDS ACADEMIC INTEGRITY?
The rector of Singidunum threatened the students with "criminal, civil and disciplinary" liability if they block the building.
"Plenums of students of private faculties find themselves in a paradoxical position in which they actually quixoticly defend the academic character of their institutions, trying to integrate into the wider academic context," Tatjana Rosić, who teaches at the Faculty of Media and Communications of Singidunum, wrote about it.
"In this strange schism, no one came forward to ask: what kind of mysterious game is being played between private faculties and the corrupt state, a game in which students do not (want to) participate? And what about the professors of those faculties who should be part of the same academic community that their students build and defend in their plenums?" Rosić asked in an article for Peščanik.
But here it seems to return to the basic logic in this kind of Serbia - to some extent, business can be done with agility, a good idea and hard work, but to some extent it can only be done with political support. This also applies to the educational business, so it is no wonder how the owners and managements of private colleges reason.
"Private institutions are much easier to control than state institutions, because there is a hierarchy that does not exist in state institutions. In state institutions, there are regulated rules on how decisions are made and there is a control system, however fragile it may be in our conditions," says former rector Popović.
In the end, it may be easy for lawyer Đukanović to advocate complete private education, from kindergarten to doctoral studies. He once told "Vreme" that after a few years as a lawyer, he sold apartments for 620.000 euros by "making money and killing himself from work".
A large part of the ruling caste, whose children are often in private schools, is used to similar blackening. And how would a parent living with the famous average salary pay for it? Maybe he has to "darken" more.
Every sixth student privately
Although Megatrend was founded in 1989 as a Business School, the first private faculty in Serbia is the one run by the company "Braća Karić", which began operating in 1994. It was a year after the category of students who pay their own tuition was introduced at state colleges.
Since then, private accredited faculties have been recognized, and the diploma of state and private faculties has been equalized.
At the time of registration for the current academic year, twelve private universities with 46 faculties, as well as fifteen colleges and nine vocational colleges were accredited in Serbia.
A total of 209825 students are enrolled in state and private universities. Of that, 16,3 percent or 34200 students enrolled in private colleges. 7273 students were enrolled in private higher vocational schools.
The most popular private university in Serbia is Singidunum, with about ten thousand students. Tuition for basic studies is from 1800 to 3000 euros per year. For master's studies, about 1900 euros.
In the past eight years, the number of students at state colleges has decreased by five thousand, and at private ones it has increased by more than three thousand.
