Transcript The New Public-Private Dynamics in Polish Higher Education

The New Public-Private Dynamics in
Polish Higher Education
(NORPOL Oslo seminar, 20 January, 2010)
Professor Marek Kwiek
Center for Public Policy
Poznan University, Poznan,
Poland
[email protected]
www.cpp.amu.edu.pl
(1) Introduction
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European integration in HE goes beyond old EU-15.
Changes are different. In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)
HE reforms have led to new public-private dynamics: the
change was towards unplanned and unexpected
privatization of HE, to expand previously closed and elite
systems. Expansion came later, and was based on fees.
Access success-story in Poland was achieved via two forms
of privatization (internal and external) – but was
accompanied by the emergence of new, intersectoral
dynamics: between the old (public) and the new (private)
insitutions. This dynamics is still relatively marginal in
Western Europe. The phenomenon of P-P Dynamics is
relatively non-comparable, and under-researched.
(2) Introduction
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Wider context: the need for HE expansion? EC states
(2005): EU needs a further 50% increase in HE
enrolment level (to close the gap with the US – i.e.
from 25% to 38%). General agreement: higher
education matters more and more, possibly there is no
„crowding out” effect on less educated in the labor
market? Furher expansion of HE – or redefinition
towards tertiary, postsecondary etc. education?
Aim: improving access and increasing total (public and
private) funding for HE – how to achieve both ends in
the context of funding problems (financial austerity) for
public services in general? Especially in CEEs?
(3) Introduction
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Under-researched topic in European HE studies: a
social experiment (in Poland and other CEEs) of
increasing access to HE via internal and external
privatization. Was there any other solution to increase
access possible in the first decade after 1989? (other
dimensions include: privatization of pension schemes
and of healthcare provision, or major public services, in
Poland – achieved or planned; an ideology, a public
mood, budgetary constraints. Martin Carnoy: financedriven reforms – rather than equity-driven reforms,
UNESCO 2000).
(4) Introduction
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Goal of present research: to assess this ongoing largescale social and economic experiment in which HE
expansion was achieved via privatization – and to try to
predict future shape (in 2015-25) of Polish HE sector.
Polish private HE (34% of enrolments in 2009): what is
its future under unprecedented (in Europe)
demographic pressures? (see the graph below –
people aged 18-24 in PL, 2020, 60% of 2008!,
OECD/GUS projections).
(5) Introduction
Changing demographics and HE sector: 20082035
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
2008
2011
0-17
2014
2017
2020
2023
18-24
2026
2029
2032
25+
2035
(6) Introduction
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In Europe, several countries could be used for comparisons
with Poland with respect to the growth of the private sector:
e.g. 2 CEEs (Bulgaria, Romania) and 3 EU-15 (Spain,
Portugal, Italy).
Question: how further necessary (if we view it as necessary)
expansion is to be performed in existing organisational,
administrative and funding arrangements? And what would
„expansion” of HE mean in PL?
Additionally, how the expansion is being translated into
matching the labour market needs and expectations?
In PL, the HE market seems to have stabilized at the below
2 M students level: saturated now, strongly decreasing in
the future.
(7) Introduction
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Question: to what extent matching skills and
competences provided by the traditional HE sector
(university sector, not VET) with the labor market
needs is necessary? To what extent – just a rhetorical
device?
In national systems, clear distinctions between the
university sector and the VET sector. At the EU level,
via ideas of EQF and of learning outcomes – the VET
sectors (levels 6-8) viewed as more important as ever
before. And – increasingly under the EU competences
(not, traditionally, under nation-state competences)!
(8) Expansion and Privatization
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Aim of the presentation: to present and assess the
change in Polish higher education system in 19902010 related to wider processes of P-P dynamics.
On the margins: the issue of external privatisation
(growth in the number of private sector providers)
and internal privatisation (various finance-driven
cost-recovery mechanisms in public sector
institutions), of the two previous, Poznan seminar
presentations.
(9) Expansion and Privatization
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Can privatisation (in both forms) be a remedy to
attain still higher attainment levels in those European
systems where all traditional, publicly-funded routes
seem structurally difficult to achieve? I.e. mostly in
CEE countries? It was a remedy from a numerical point
of view (numbers! not quality). If the EC is right about
the need to increase enrolments in the EU by 50% (!),
then privatisation might be an answer in countries with
below-average GDP. If there is no need of further
expansion in partcular EU nation-states, then
privatisation in both forms is not necessary.
But: privatzation, and generally new P-P dynamics in
public services, is also heavily ideology-driven.
(10) Expansion and Privatization
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If expansion of HE sector is needed, and if privatisation
is indeed a remedy, is it the sort of expansion that
European labour markets need?
How graduates from these private, new segments of
HE and graduates increasingly paying fees are
matched to the labour market, and how employers
view them, compared with graduates from traditional
public institutions or from full-time, non-fee paying
programs in CEEs?
Are there significant differences in skills and
competences of graduates according to the
employers?
(11) P-P dynamics: consequences?
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Are trends affecting public and private higher education
institutions isomorphic or divergent today? And how
internal privatisation of public institutions (costrecovery mechanisms including e.g. cost-sharing in
teaching; academic entrepreneurialism in research;
other third-stream activities; increasing reliance on
non-core non-state income etc) - is transforming
institutons from the inside? How long would it take to
see and properly assess the institutional
consequences of these internal transformations?
(12) P-P Dynamics
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P-P dynamics: Daniel C. Levy, “it is impossible to
understand contemporary expansion, including its size and
contours and policy dimensions, without knowledge about
both [public and private] sectors. It is also important to
analyse dynamics between the sectors. What effects does a
kind of access through one sector have on the other
sector” (Levy 2008: 13). This idea fits Polish HE perfectly.
Any division of HEIs into merely „good” and „bad”
institutions (instead of pHE-PHE) does not make much
sense in Poland, despite strong (political) pressures to
forget about this fundamental difference. Reason: PHEIs
want public funding, and want it now! (demographics, heavy
reliance on fees).
(13) Expansion – over-supply?
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Stephen Machin and Sandra McNally (in their OECD
study of education systems and labour markets): “in no
case considered here, can one speak of ‘oversupply’ of tertiary education. The strong, positive
and (often) increasing return to tertiary education
suggests that ‘under-supply’ is more of an issue and
that continued expansion is justified” (Machin and
McNally 2007: 3). How does this conclusion refer to
Poland, with still much lower needs for highly educated
workforce? What are the parameters of „over-supply”
of HE graduates (decreasing wage premia on HE?
Increasing share unemployed with HE degrees?). And
in the EU?
(14) Privatization – a broader trend
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Privatization: Guy Neave, “the signs [in
Europe] are very clear that what began as
individual initiatives is on the way to becoming
a broader and more general strategy”
(Neave 2008: 32). Poland is one of the best
examples, and still under-researched in HE
literature.
(15) Three Themes of P-P Dynamics
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Theme 1: Internal and external privatisation of higher
education (done, 1 slide below)
Theme 2: Public sector and private sector graduates in
the labour market (not done, 1 slide below)
Theme 3: The academic profession in the private
sector and the teaching-research divide in both sectors
of higher education.
–
Only Theme 3 developed here below.
(16) Theme 1 - Privatization
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Initial hypothesis: internal privatization (fees in Poland, Romania
or Bulgaria in the public sector) and external privatisation (PL, RO,
BG and I, ES and PT) contribute significantly to the access issue
(opening educational institutions to new segments of society
which had been previosuly effectively excluded from HE). But their
effect on equity (fairness, and equity of outcomes) may be
questionable.
Public universities in Poland are receiving the brightest middle
classes kids. New students (from lower socio-economic, or
disadvantaged, groups) go to (academically inferior) private
institutions or to fee-based part-time programs in public ones.
Thus: privatisation in Poland is an access “success story”,
accompanied by a possible equity “failure”. The share of
students from lower SE groups has not grown proportionally to the
total growth of HE in numbers.
(17) Theme 2 - Graduates
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Initial hypothesis: the mismatch between skills of private sector
graduates and the labour market requirements is smaller than in
the case of public sector graduates in the same programs and in
the same sector of employment. Reason: more heavily dependent
on fees. (BUT: PHE is focused on several areas of studies only!).
Initial hypothesis: the links to the labour market of those few
selected (shared by both sectors) study programmes are closer
for private institutions in old EU countries and weaker in newEU countries, owing to the faster growth of the private sector in
the latter countries and consequently its smaller degree of
competition with the underfunded public sector. In old EU
countries, private HE can be heavily elite (Italy, Spain, France,
Norway), while in CEEs it is merely „demand-absorbing” (Levy’s
classification).
(18) Theme 3 – Academic Profession
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Hypothesis: the private-public dynamics in higher education
affects academic profession in both sectors. Research into
changing academic profession in the private sector is needed.
Hypothesis: there is emergent structural isomorphism of
changes in the two sectors, and the increased impact of private
sector organisation, management styles and contractual and
labour relationships on public sector institutions.
Hypothesis: while in the private sector, the teaching-research
divide is already achieved (i.e. private sector in PL and most EU
systems is a teaching sector), the contrast of private sector with
the public sector may be weakening, following trends to
increasingly locate and fund research outside of higher education.
And to increase the concentration of research funding in top-tier
public institutions. New divide: top public research-intensive
institutions vs. second rank public and (almost all) private HEIs?
(19) Theme 3 – Academic Profession
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Hypothesis: growing isomorphism between public and private
sectors, or public sector becoming structurally more similar to
private sector, and both sectors becoming significantly more
involved in the third, regional mission (service to the society), for
mostly financial reasons.
Hypothesis: EC „university modernization agenda” heavily
involved in removing traditional differences between the university
sector and the VET sector (economic agenda of post-Lisbon new
„Agenda 2020”; better opportunities to implement EU-wide policies
in education if referred to more vocational education than to
university HE).
(20) Theme 3 – Academic Profession
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Change of mood is expressed in an EU communication on
“Mobilising the Brainpower of Europe”: “If universities are to
become more attractive locally and globally, profound
curricular revision is required – not just to ensure the
highest level of academic content, but also to respond to the
changing needs of labour markets. The integration of
graduates into professional life, and hence into society, is
a major social responsibility of higher education” (EC
2005c: 5).
Change of major parameters of operation of universities
suggested by the EC: closer to the mission of VET
institutions? What would be the intersectoral difference:
traditional universities vs. traditional VET institutions?
(21) Theme 3 – Academic Profession
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Following transformations of all public sector
institutions, universities in Europe – traditionally
publicly-funded and traditionally specializing in both
teaching and research – are under powerful
pressures to review their missions and to compete for
financial resources with other public services heavily
reliant on the public purse.
The consequences for the teaching/research agenda
are far-reaching: policymakers are (traditionally) more
interested in instruction at HEIs, rather than in
research. Except for institutions of special status (in
Poland: towards KNOWs, Leading National Scientific
Centers, within institutions, in selected areas only).
(22) Theme 3 – Academic Profession
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The trend of disconnecting teaching and research in
higher education has already started: as Stephan VincentLancrin (2006: 12) summarizes his analyses of OECD
datasets, “academic research might just become
concentrated in a relatively small share of the system while
the largest number of institutions will carry out little
research, if any”.
In Poland, heavy concentration of research funding has
already been achieved: see the graph below: 1 HEI – 10%,
10 HEIs – 60%, 20 HEIs – 80%, 30 HEIs – 90% of research
funding (out of ca. 100 public and ca. 320 private!).
Consequently – academic profession involved in research
(on average) in 4,7-7,0% all institutionsm, or 20-30% public
institutions only (no research without funding, in general).
(23) Theme 3 – Academic Profession
% of income from research (in all public
research funding available)
Concentration of public research funds in Poland, 2008
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
0,0097 9,7087 19,417 29,126 38,835 48,544 58,252 67,961 77,67 87,379 97,087
100
% of HEIs in all HEIs, ordered by decreasing income from research
(24) Conclusions
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The reason for the renewed (10 years!) EU interest in higher
education is clearly stated by the EC: while responsibilities
for universities lie essentially at national (or regional)
level, the most important challenges are “European, and
even international or global” (EC 2003a: 9). Higher
education, left at the disposal of particular nation-states in
recent decades in Europe, returns now to the forefront in
discussions about the future economic competitiveness of
the EU as a whole. And the economic perspective is
dominant among policymakers.
EC is certainly interested in having substantially more
impact on policies in HE, especially in formulating and
implementing EU-wide policies (via e.g. OMC, EQF etc).
(25) Conclusions
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New P-P dynamics is appearing mostly in CEEs,
especially in the context of HE expansion achieved
with limited public funding.
The public sector/private sector divide in HE leads to
new relationships with the labor market. And it leads to
the differentation of the academic profession itself:
much fewer academics are potentially involved in
research. MK: new study on Polish academic
profession (EUROHESC EUROAC for ESF, with DA).
The concentration of research, and research funding,
is bigger than ever before (no research in the private
sector, major research in 20% of public institutions).
(26) Conclusions
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Various forms of public-private dynamics are not
theoretical concepts but labels of ongoing real
transformations which (especially in CEE) had been
mostly unplanned and unexpected. These
transformations make today a difference between
educational systems in older and newer EU member
states.
Understanding these differences is critical in planning
the expansion of EHEA and ERA to both parts of
Europe.
Thank you very much for your attention!