What’s Proposed by the 3 New On Higher Education Bills

Monday, 9 January 2012

The past two weeks have been very eventful-three On Higher Education bills were registered in the Ukrainian Parliament.  The first bill was submitted by the government; violating the rules they submitted an old but revised bill prepared by the Ministry (it was analyzed before the New Year).  The second was a bill submitted by National People's Deputies Orobets and Yatsenyuk-we'll call it the parliamentary bill.  The third bill was registered on the day before Christmas by the President's representative in Parliament, National People's Deputy Miroshnychenko; it too is a newly revised version of an old bill-let's call it the Presidential bill.   So, what changes do these three bills propose for Ukrainian university professors?  To what degree do they promote the interests of HEI faculty?  Obviously, faculty members are most interested in their compensation.  The Ministry's bill made the fewest changes in this area.  It proposes that the Ministry continue to set the number of allowable lecture hours for faculty.  It will set and regulate the number of individuals studying to become lecturers and researchers in the education field.   Establishments that the Ministry of Education has designated as Research universities will not be included in this.   This means that Ministry officials will continue to determine, how many hours to allocate for each type of activity lecturers are involved in.  However they also propose removing limits on the number of work hours.  Currently research workers in the educational field are limited to 900 lecture hours a year; pedagogues are limited to 720 hours a year.  The Ministry's bill proposes removing this limit and allowing establishments of higher education (HEIs) to set their own lecture hour requirements "within the confines dictated by total allowable work hours for each particular position."  Total allowable work hour limits are set by labor laws which limit lecturers to work 36 hours a week or 1584 hours a year.  It is difficult to understand the rationale for increasing the maximum allowable lecture hours from 900 to 1584 hours a year.  One thing, however, is clear: allowing HEIs to set these limits (even if we assume they will be set at general staff meetings, which is not indicated) while leaving the Ministry to set student-teacher ratios is purely an attempt to placate the masses.

What does the Presidential bill propose in this regard?  It also removes current restrictions and proposes that HEIs set their own restrictions in their statues and during collective agreements.  This assumes that norms and standards will be determined by faculty vote.  Additionally, a number of regulations in the bill are set by the HEIs regardless of their status.  Therefore, the proposal lacks a loophole that the Ministry's proposal contains.  What proposals does the Parliamentary bill contain?  Its authors have less trust in HEI administrations and chancellors and therefore kept but reduced required lecture hours.  Researchers in the educational sphere will only be allowed 600 lecture hours a year, slightly more than a third of their overall working hours annually.  In general, the time allotted to research, lecturing, organizing and developing methodologies will be determined by the Academic Council.  Aside from this, HEIs (without designating which specific structure in the HEIs) will be allowed to determine the form and scope of allowable educational research activities.

So, to summarize-the Ministry's bill basically preserves the current onerous system while further compromising already overburdened lecturers.  The Parliamentary bill (the one we lastly reviewed) sets but reduces maximum lecture hour limits.  It also decentralizes the process of determining the form and scope of lecturers' activities.  The President's proposal goes even further by practically forcing chancellors and unions to set lecturers' salaries.  Additionally, both the Presidential and Parliamentary proposals foresee differentials for those with advanced degrees; the Presidential bill would pay an additional 15-20%, the Parliamentary bill, an additional 25% of the base salary.  In addition to salaries, conditions and requirements for particular positions are an equally important issue.   All three proposals demand a competitive merit selection process.  The Ministry's bill requires the Ministry to centrally establish the selection criteria while the Presidential and Parliamentary bills propose that HEIs independently set selection criteria for their vacancies.  However, there is a difference between the latter bills: the Presidential bill proposes that these criteria be set out in an HEI's statutes while the Parliamentary bill requires them to be set by the HEI's Academic Council.  The Presidential and Parliamentary bills allow individuals who graduated from Western universities to be hired as educational researchers while the Ministry's bill forbids this practice.  The last issue examined is how faculty will be allowed to improve their qualifications.  All three proposals state that average salaries should be paid out to faculty on sabbatical.  The Presidential bill requires that HEIs allow faculty the opportunity to go on sabbatical or participate in courses related to their area of expertise once every 7 years for up to one year.  The Parliamentary bill indicates that sabbatical is a requirement of each lecturer and stipulates that lecturers must participate in courses related to their area of expertise, at home or abroad, for a minimum of 5 months every five years.  The Ministry's bill mentions that lecturers can, but does not require them to, improve their qualifications; additionally it doesn't indicate how long training should last (it only mentions once every 5 years), and doesn't allow for lecturers to receive additional training abroad.

That's the overview of the three proposals designed to placate university faculty.  One of them will be accepted as it is because it seems that there is only the slightest chance that the Presidential and Parliamentary bills might be integrated.  It is more important than ever to hear from the faculty.  Only the lecturers themselves should decide what pay and work conditions will elevate their profession.

Yehor Stadnyy, Lb.ua