Neve Gordon, Ben-Gurion University

On May 31, I joined some 50 students and faculty members who gathered outside Ben-Gurion University of the Negev to demonstrate against the Israeli military assault on the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid toward Gaza. In response, the next day a few hundred students marched toward the social-sciences building, Israeli flags in hand. Amid the nationalist songs and pro-government chants, there were also shouts demanding my resignation from the university faculty.

One student even proceeded to create a Facebook group whose sole goal is to have me sacked. So far over 2,100 people (many of them nonstudents) have joined. In addition to death wishes and declarations that I should be exiled, the site includes a call on students to spy on me during class. “We believe,” ends a message written to the group, “that if we conduct serious and profound work, we can, with the help of each and every one of you, gather enough material to influence … Neve Gordon’s status at the university, and maybe even bring about his dismissal.”

Such personal attacks are part of a much broader assault on Israeli higher education and its professors. Two recent incidents exemplify the protofascist logic that is being deployed to undermine the pillars of academic freedom in Israel, while also revealing that the assault on Israeli academe is being backed by neoconservative forces in the United States.

The first incident involves a report published by the Institute for Zionist Strategies, in Israel, which analyzed course syllabi in Israeli sociology departments and accused professors of a “post-Zionist” bias. The institute defines post-Zionism as “the pretense to undermine the foundations of the Zionist ethos and an affinity with the radical leftist stream.” In addition to the usual Israeli leftist suspects, intellectuals like Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm also figure in as post-Zionists in the report.

The institute sent the report to the Israel Council for Higher Education, which is the statutory body responsible for Israeli universities, and the council, in turn, sent it to all of the university presidents. Joseph Klafter, president of Tel-Aviv University, actually asked several professors to hand over their syllabi for his perusal, though he later asserted that he had no intention of policing faculty members and was appalled by the report.

A few days later, the top headline of the Israeli daily Haaretz revealed that another right-wing organization, Im Tirtzu (If You Will It), had threatened Ben-Gurion University, where I am a professor and a former chair of the government and politics department. Im Tirtzu told the university’s president, Rivka Carmi, that it would persuade donors to place funds in escrow unless the university took steps “to put an end to the anti-Zionist tilt” in its politics and government department. The organization demanded a change “in the makeup of the department’s faculty and the content of its syllabi,” giving the president a month to meet its ultimatum. This time my head was not the only one it wanted.

President Carmi immediately asserted that Im Tirtzu’s demands were a serious threat to academic freedom. However, Minister of Education Gideon Sa’ar, who is also chairman of the Council for Higher Education, restricted his response to a cursory statement that any move aimed at harming donations to universities must be stopped. Mr. Sa’ar’s response was disturbingly predictable. Only a few months earlier, he had spoken at an Im Tirtzu gathering, following its publication of a report about the so-called leftist slant of syllabi in Israeli political-science departments. At the gathering, he asserted that even though he had not read the report, its conclusions would be taken very seriously.

Although the recent scuffle seems to be about academic freedom, the assault on the Israeli academe is actually part of a much wider offensive against liberal values. Numerous forces in Israel are mobilizing in order to press forward an extreme-right political agenda.

They have chosen the universities as their prime target for two main reasons. First, even though Israeli universities as institutions have never condemned any government policy—not least the restrictions on Palestinian universities’ academic freedom—they are home to many vocal critics of Israel’s rights-abusive policies. Those voices are considered traitorous and consequently in need of being stifled. Joining such attacks are Americans like Alan M. Dershowitz, who in a recent visit to Tel-Aviv University called for the resignations of professors who supported the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli goods and divestment from Israeli companies until the country abides by international human-rights law. He named Rachel Giora and Anat Matar, both tenured professors at Tel Aviv University, as part of that group.

Second, all Israeli universities depend on public funds for about 90 percent of their budget. This has been identified as an Achilles heel. The idea is to exploit the firm alliance those right-wing organizations have with government members and provide the ammunition necessary to make financial support for universities conditional on the dissemination of nationalist thought and the suppression of “subversive ideas.” Thus, in the eyes of those right-wing Israeli organizations, the universities are merely arms of the government.

And, yet, Im Tirtzu and other such organizations would not have been effective on their own; they depend on financial support from backers in the United States. As it turns out, some of their ideological allies are willing to dig deep into their pockets to support the cause.

The Rev. John C. Hagee, the leader of Christians United for Israel, has been Im Tirtzu’s sugar daddy, and his ministries have provided the organization with at least $100,000. After Im Tirtzu’s most recent attack, however, even Mr. Hagee concluded that it had gone overboard and decided to stop giving funds. The Hudson Institute, a neoconservative think tank that helped shape the Bush administration’s Middle East policies, has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Institute for Zionist Strategies over the past few years, and was practically its only donor. For Christians United and the Hudson Institute, the attack on academic freedom is clearly also a way of advancing much broader objectives.

The Hudson Institute, for example, has neo-imperialist objectives in the Middle East, and a member of its Board of Trustees is in favor of attacking Iran. Christian United’s eschatological position (whereby the Second Coming is dependent on the gathering of all Jews in Israel), includes support for such an attack. The scary partnership between such Israeli and American organizations helps reveal the true aims of this current assault on academic freedom: to influence Israeli policy and eliminate the few liberal forces that are still active in the country. The atmosphere within Israel is conducive to such intervention.

Nonetheless, Im Tirtzu’s latest threat backfired, as did that of the Institute for Zionist Strategies’ report; the assaults have been foiled for now. The presidents of all the universities in Israel condemned the reports and promised never to bow down to this version of McCarthyism.

Despite those declarations, the rightist organizations have actually made considerable headway. Judging from comments on numerous online news sites, the populist claim that the public’s tax money is being used to criticize Israel has convinced many readers that the universities should be more closely monitored by the government and that “dissident” professors must be fired. Moreover, the fact that the structure of Israeli universities has changed significantly over the past five years, and that now most of the power lies in the hands of presidents rather than the faculty, will no doubt be exploited to continue the assault on academic freedom. Top university administrators are already stating that if the Israeli Knesset approves a law against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement for Palestine, the law will be used to fire faculty members who support the movement.

More importantly, there is now the sense among many faculty members that a thought police has been formed—and that many of its officers are actually members of the academic community. The fact that students are turning themselves into spies and that syllabi are being collected sends a chilling message to faculty members across the country. I, for one, have decided to include in my syllabi a notice restricting the use of recording devices during class without my prior consent. And many of my friends are now using Gmail instead of the university e-mail accounts for fear that their correspondence will in some way upset administrators.

Israeli academe, which was once considered a bastion of free speech, has become the testing ground for the success of the assault on liberal values. And although it is still extremely difficult to hurt those who have managed to enter the academic gates, those who have not yet passed the threshold are clearly being monitored.

I know of one case in which a young academic was not hired due to his membership in Courage to Refuse, an organization of reserve soldiers who refuse to do military duty in the West Bank. In a Google and Facebook age, the thought police can easily disqualify a candidate based on petitions signed and even online “friends” one has. Israeli graduate students are following such developments, and for them the message is clear.

While in politics nothing is predetermined, Israel is heading down a slippery slope. Israeli academe is now an arena where some of the most fundamental struggles of a society are being played out. The problem is that instead of struggling over basic human rights, we are now struggling over the right to struggle.

German Original

In Federal Germany, universities in several regions have recently been in protest against the higher education policy of the Federal Republic and the Federal Lands. Protests targeted miserable conditions for university studies, university fees, chronic lack and further reductions in higher education funding as well as the so-called “Bologna-Process”. In contrast to former protest movements, these recent protests had the support of students and professors alike. They express and reflect the deep seated crises of the educational system in general and of universities in particular. A recent “education summit” in which Federal Republic and Federal Lands were supposed to agree on future financing of education had failed. The summit abandoned the aim of raising research and education expenditure – at around 8% of GNP in 2008 – to 10% in 2015.

Thus, for the second time in the last half of a century, Germany is experiencing a crisis of the university. Besides a few parallels, such as the call for more participation and decision-making power for students, there are important differences. The first “educational disaster”, as stated by Georg Picht and Ralf Dahrendorf in the 1960s, led to overall reforms of universities oriented to the ideal of the unity and freedom of research and teaching and followed the political slogan of “Education for all”. It was accompanied by broader societal and critical historical perspectives developed by the 1960s cohort of students. By contrast, the so-called Bologna-Process has nearly inverted the impulse of this last big reform. If attempts at organizing a European Higher Education Area according to the Anglo-Saxon model, with a focus on economically relevant, vocational education that has been ongoing since 1999 has not caused the current university crisis, it has certainly reinforced it. The heavy financial and economic crisis that Germany has been recently experiencing has further accentuated the university crisis. In the following, we can merely focus on a few aspects of this highly complex problematic.

1. Statistical data on the current situation

To start with, a few statistical data will provide a first impression of the current state of the German university system: According to “Conference of University Presidents: Universities in figures 2009” („Hochschulrektorenkonferenz: Hochschulen in Zahlen 2009“), there are currently 355 higher education institutions, out of which 118 are universities, 182 universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen), and 55 higher education institutions for Arts and Music; 233 of these are public and 122 non-public but publicly recognized, 82 private and 40 church-sponsored. The number of employees of higher education institutions totalled 518,613 in 2009, out of which 260,064 was academic staff. Among these were 38,020 professors, 6,157 lecturers and assistants and 130,776 other academic staff. Regarding funding, the overall income of universities totalled 32 Billion EUR in 2009; 3.9 were third party funds, out of which 1.1 Billion from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and 1.0 Billion from the private sector.

In the course of neo-liberal policies and growing globalisation of the economy, the old ideal of research and teaching being distant from government and market has been gradually dismissed. Universities oftentimes function as public or private infrastructures for knowledge and technology transfer into national and international markets. In many disciplines, vocational instead of academic teaching predominates, oriented towards the labour market and making economic usefulness and necessities as the main reference point.

The current state of the universities is so confused that the situation also sheds doubt onto the functionality of the traditional federal system. For instance, the Federal Chancellor has recently called for the “Educational Republic of Germany” while the CDU/FDP coalition in Berlin, in the debate around the reform and cutting of public funding in general, favours the “priority of education and research” (Frankfurter Rundschau, 10.6.2010). However, as the Federal Government has only limited competency in the domain of education and culture, whereas the Federal Lands have authority in this domain, the regional policies, especially in CDU-governed Lands, has much more importance. For instance, the Prime Minister of Hessen and Vice CDU-Chairman recently declared that cuts in funding for schools and universities were not taboo. The Land plans to reduce funding for universities by 30 Million Euro per annum until 2015. Sachsen’s plans to cut around 24 Million in 2010 will further deteriorate a situation where alone in 2003, 1200 posts were axed, among them 400 professorships. Another example is the highly indebted Schleswig-Holstein, where the president of Lübeck University finds out through the daily newspaper that the highly prestigious and successful medical faculty of his own university will be closed down (Frankfurter Rundschau, 10.06.2010).

2. Bologna-Reform

In 1999, 29 Ministers of Education and Research decided to create a common European university area. The core of the planned reform consists in a unified curriculum structure forBA, MA and PhD degrees. In the meantime, about 95% of European universities have introduced the new system. In Germany, the application of the reform, oriented towards the Anglo-Saxon model, represents a deviation from a 200-year-old tradition and from a curriculum structure that was well established and provided (internationally) recognized degrees. An interim evaluation presented by the European University Association (Frankfurter Rundschau, 10. and 13/14.3.2010), which is contradictory in parts, nevertheless points out clear failures of the Bologna-Process and its application in Germany.

Apparently, two of the main aims of the reform have not been achieved. First of all, mobility of students and academics was supposed to increase due to the reform. However, after 10 years, universities can still not determine with certainty whether the reform has fostered such mobility between universities in different countries. Between 2007 and 2009, the number of German students with studying experience in a foreign country only rose from 23 to 26 percent – as compared to 50% as targeted by the Federal Ministry of Education, a rather modest result, all the more so as this increase concerned primarily students of the Magister and Diploma curricula of the old system. Secondly, the other main aim of getting young people more rapidly into the labour market has not been achieved either. Employers’ acceptance and recognition of BA degrees is still an issue, as often the MA is regarded as the necessary qualification in order to be integrated into the labour market. Finally, with regard to the now highly structured university teaching, it is obvious that the Bologna-Process can not be realised without considerable increase in staff and funding.

3. Education and social origin

Recent studies of the educational system and career paths in Germany have again demonstrated that the correlation between social origin and educational chances is higher in Germany than in most other countries. Children of families with an academic background find it much easier to attend high school and university than children whose parents have low levels of education and low socio-economic status. Representatives from the working class are still strongly under-represented at universities. While out of 100 children of academics, 83 go to a higher education institution, only 23 children from non-academic family backgrounds do so, as the 18^th Social Survey of the German National Association for Student Affairs (Deutsches Studentenwerk) shows. Less than half those who complete high school and who come  from poor families plan to go to university. Overall, the proportion of pupils starting a university curriculum in Germany lies under the OECD average. The educational summit in June 2010 aimed at increasing the current 35% to 40%. It remains an open question how the extra university places and additional staff will be funded and where these future graduates are supposed to find a job later on.

Having an immigrant  background is a further mark of discrimination: only 13% of children of immigrants  attend high school, as compared to 40% of all other children. This tendency is continued at university, where offspring from immigrant families face considerable obstacles although they represent an important potential for the country. As 4ING, the umbrella association of engineering and IT faculties (civil and electrical engineering, communication technology, mechanical and process engineering), states in an unpublished study (Frankfurter Rundschau, 20.05.2010), however, technical disciplines that have lower expectations in terms of language offer better chances to immigrants. While in former times, engineering represented a potential of upward social mobility for children from the working class, this is also now for young people from immigrant families.

4. Lop-sided academic support system

In Germany, out of around 2 million university students, only 2% receive a scholarship. These are mainly provided by the 12 organizations for the promotion of young talent, such as the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) or the foundations of the political parties. However, until now, it is rarely students with limited financial means who profit from these measures, but more usually children from academic and rather affluent families who are actually less in need of material support.  According to critical analysis, the currently planned national scholarship program, according to which, in the future, 8% of the best students should receive a monthly grant of 300 EUR, will further intensify the social selection process, rather than reducing it. In any case, Bundesrat has blocked this program for the moment.

As the statistics entitled “Conference of University Presidents: Universities in figures 2009”, (based on material from the Federal Statistical Office) show, gender-specific inequalities and deficits remain strong in Germany. Even though the situation of women in academia has been improving, discrimination remains important. The share of female students, around 40% at the beginning of the 1990s, has increased to 0.98 million out of a total of 2.01 million in 2009, thus nearly 48% of all students. Regarding graduates – 286,391 in total (graduating at a university with a BA, MA, Diplom, Magister, or teaching degree) out of which 145,380 are female and 141,011 male – women have become more numerous than men.

However, according to the same 2009 statistics, at PhD level (total 23,843, 10,068 female and 13,775 male) and still more importantly at the level of “Habilitation” (postdoctoral lecture qualification where there is a total of 1,881, out of which 457 are female, and 1,424 are male), women are still strongly underrepresented. In terms of professorships, the share of women has increased from about 7% at the beginning of the 1990s to around 17% in 2008. Women are thus still strongly disadvantaged when it comes to occupying well-paid and secure academic positions. An important intellectual potential thus gets lost, while , out of the comparably smaller pool of male candidates who complete university education, necessarily less qualified ones are chosen.

5. Precarious working conditions at university

Germany is facing important problems regarding working conditions of academic staff. According to higher education researcher Reinhard Kreckel, Germany is “quite an outlier” when compared to the US or other European countries. While in other countries – in the US around 50% – of academic staff is in secure professorship positions, only around 17% in Germany can count on this job security. Only fixed-term contracts are offered to mid-level faculty for duration of a maximum of 12 years after completion of a first degree. After these 12 years, a so-called “qualification phase”, persons who have not achieved a secured position with a permanent contract cannot be employed in an academic institution any longer. As one can imagine, those affected find it extremely difficult to find a job in another sector outside the university. Working conditions are thus highly precarious for the vast majority of university staff. Research positions funded by third-parties are always limited in duration. Part-time work, for a long time a particular feature of women’s working conditions, has increased for men as well – all this combined with modest salaries, bureaucratic regulation and interference, and working hours far beyond collective agreements. Thus, for many upcoming researchers, working at a university ends in a career-dead-end, unless  they manage to transfer to  other sectors or emigrate to countries where conditions are more attractive.

Current measures to improve the situation, such as the „Initiative for Excellence “ or the initiative “Freedom for Research in the Humanities” by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, based on competition, considerably improve financial conditions in certain institutions, programs or projects. However, again these measures do not guarantee long-term, sustainable structures and secure working conditions.

Another important point is the high percentage of persons without children in the mid-level faculty. In the age cohort 20-40 years, more than 70% do not have children. Among the professors, two thirds of male professors are fathers, while only one third of female professors have children. Obviously, male professors can more easily afford to have children due to secure financial situations and futures. On the other hand, educational researchers Ingrid Metz-Göckel and Inken Lind see it as a “small cultural sensation” that there are any mothers at all in academia, and even more amazing they find them to be no less successful than other academics. The protests mentioned in the beginning have not remained without a certain impact on higher education policies. Here and there, corrections of curricula are planned; an increase in salaries for teaching posts is being discussed. Whether these will prove sufficient to re-establish traditional standards and to reverse the McDonaldisation of the university, as stated by Ulrich Beck, remains open to doubt.

In any case, the Bologna-Reform with its pressures towards homogenization, rigid scheduling of courses and heteronomy, as Peter Finke states, accelerates the commodification and bureaucratisation of research and teaching. Sociologist, Wolfgang Eßbach, looking back at recent reforms, gives the following perspective: “Now many are saying ‘we did not want that’. That makes me feel optimistic”.

The new Estonian Museum of Art hosts a very beautiful painting by Elmar Kits of 1956, showing young women and strong men harvesting grain in a yellow autumn field in Soviet Estonia. They look happy and proud. In the foreground, two women seem to be talking, one with a notebook and a pencil in her hand. There is a weighing scale at the side.

When I saw the picture could not help thinking about the university reform Finland is going through at the moment. State universities that earlier were an integral part of the state bureaucracy, controlled financially by the Ministry of Education and in the last instance by the parliament, have become financially “autonomous” units, still mostly financed by the Ministry of Education but no longer within its budget. Instead, the universities now have their own budgets, with contributions from the state to cover immediate costs due to teaching and some research. Additional funds are sought at the Finnish national research council (misleadingly called the Academy of Finland), the national fund for science and technology, several ministries and private sources. The model is much the same as in American state universities.

The objective of the reform was to improve the universities’ capacity to compete for research funding, their responsiveness to societal needs and their strategic specialisation. The administrative structures were streamlined so that the idea of representativeness through democratic elections was replaced by increased power of the university presidents (called Rectors in Finland) and an appointed Board with significant personalities from outside of the academic world: (ex)politicians, businessmen and other authorities. Faculties are led by deans, and amalgamated units that combine what used to be disciplinary autonomous departments are led by directors. Deans and directors have consulting bodies to support them but they are personally responsible for the management of the system.  The old disciplinary departments are to go for good.

The management structures were changed to stress strategic agility of the units in selecting their strengths and to eliminate unproductive diversity and amateurishness. The expressed targets of the reform policy have from the beginning been international competitiveness and quality. For example the University of Helsinki seeks to become one of the world’s twenty-five best universities.

All this sounds very good, even inspiring. The old bureaucratic structures were stiff, not very dynamic and very individualistic, measuring merits and allocating resources mainly on the basis of personal achievements, whereas the new system encourages collaboration and strategic planning.

What in theory makes sense, stumbles on what seems to be an epidemic of counting in the academic world in widely different contexts. What is this counting for? What function does the counting serve in Elmar Kits’ painting? It does not add to the grain, it does not seem to have anything to do with agricultural technology (the level of agricultural productivity dropped to one third of the pre-war level after the collectivisation), and it is not part of the distributional system either. It is needed for, and symbolizes the presence of the Central Planning Agency, whose only contact with the production and distribution process is mediated by numbers produced by people like the women in the middle of the painting. The academic system likewise seems to be on its way back to the managerial organization of the second industrial revolution. The expansion of mass production and immense speed of social change was based on  huge singular production units of mass-consumables, centrally planned labour power policies, regional coordination and nationally regulated energy supply and logistic systems (railways, roads, harbours). These were dreams of such men and women as William Beveridge, Alva and Gunnar Myrdal or Pierre Mendes-France. For these people the success of the invasion of Normandy probably was the most admirable achievement of planned social organization in human history, with two million men operating in concert under one centralised leadership.

In this discussion forum we have already read about the numerous disadvantages that evaluations based on numbers carry for knowledge production: the supremacy of form over content in the refereed article, linguistic distortions in favour of English, a world view in which relevance is measured by the local standards of Western Europe, and others related to the thin ritualism of enumerating outputs rather than assessing the worth of research results. My comment on this adds one problem that has been much less discussed: the growing distance of planning, resourcing and strategic management from knowledge production itself. This distance is apparent in the hostility towards disciplinary organization, indeed, disciplinary identities at large, demonstrated by the reformers.

It seems that the radical programme of Mode 2 science as knowledge production in the context of application that Gibbons, Nowotny and others proposed twenty years ago does not seem to lead away from centralism, as was the original intention. Mode 1 science, they argued, was based on academic disciplinary authority, and for this reason not accountable by any objective outsiders’ criteria.  The Finnish science and technology policy, which aims at competitiveness and quality, is hostile to disciplinary identities, because they are seen as obstacles to usefulness. This is what the proponents of Mode 2 science also argued. It appears, though, that the true discomfort that disciplinary identities causes for the new funding and reporting system is resistance to measurable homogeneity and quantification. Respect for disciplinary differences is hostile to such quantification.

The Estonian Museum for Art houses another beautiful picture from the same era, by the first President of the Artists’ Union of the Estonian SSR, Adamson-Eric. The painting is called “Exemplary brigade of Young Communists”, showing seven female textile workers and their supervisor, also a notebook and a pencil in her hand, “discussing the details of the socialist competition of labour”, as the gallery text informs us. This, it seems, is also the fate of the new brave university structure. As we are seriously under-resourced, we are obliged to seek “efficiency” from coordinating activities, harmonising practices, writing up rules – and reporting, of course. We have been given new administrative staff to help, but what in fact happens is that before they can help us they need to know what university teachers and researchers do, individually and as a group, and for that we must deliver information to them. And that information must also be homogeneous, preferably in numeric form. This means that the organisation has indeed become leaner: not by reducing administrative workloads but by adding new organisational levels to old ones by replacing teaching and research staff with administrators, and filling up academics’ time with bureaucratic communication. We sit in meetings, discussing details, collecting information, writing up plans and priorities, procedural rules and evaluation criteria — interpreting plans sent forth to us by the Rector, the Board, the Administrative and Fiscal departments, and the university lawyers.

Universities are fragile and ambiguous organizations. The three golden As – Autonomy, Accountability and Authority – are difficult to combine. The centralized managerialism of the current Finnish reform seems to be a much worse solution than I personally expected. Its worst outcome is not that it encourages to the production of trivia; it may bury itself altogether in its own bureaucracy that increases its own resources at the expense of the productive classes in the name of “administrative efficiency”.

English Translation

Im föderativ verfassten Deutschland fanden in letzter Zeit an den Hochschulen verschiedener Bundesländer Proteste gegen die Bildungs- und Hochschulpolitik des Bundes und der Länder statt, die sich gegen die miserablen Studienbedingungen, Studiengebühren, die chronische Unterfinanzierung, die Kürzung von Hochschulgeldern und gegen den so genannten „Bologna-Prozess“ richteten und die – anders als bei früheren Protestbewegungen – von Studenten und Professoren gemeinsam getragen wurden. Diese Kundgebungen sind Anzeichen einer tief sitzenden Krise des Bildungswesens im Allgemeinen und der Universitäten im Besonderen, ebenso wie das jüngste Scheitern des „Bildungsgipfels“, bei dem Bund und Länder sich vor allem über die künftige Finanzierung der Bildungsaufgaben verständigen wollten. Das einmal angestrebte Ziel, die Ausgaben für Bildung und Forschung, die 2008 bei rund 8 Prozent des Bruttoinlandsproduktes lagen, bis zum Jahre 2015 auf zehn Prozent zu steigern, ist fallen gelassen worden.

Damit erlebt Deutschland zum zweiten Male innerhalb des letzten halben Jahrhunderts eine Krise der Universität, ja eine zweite Bildungsmisere überhaupt. Neben einigen Parallelen, wie etwa die Forderung nach mehr Mitbestimmung der Studentenschaft, gibt es gravierende Unterschiede. Während die erste „Bildungskatastrophe“, die in den 1960er Jahren von Georg Picht und Ralf Dahrendorf konstatiert worden war, eine umfassende Reform der Hochschulen und des Studiums hervorrief, die unter dem Signum der Einheit und Freiheit von Forschung Lehre und der „Bildung für alle“ stand und vor allem seitens der Studenten mit gesamtgesellschaftlichen und historisch-kritischen Perspektiven begleitet war, hat nun geradezu umgekehrt ein Reformprozeß, der so genannte Bologna-Prozeß – die 1999 einsetzende Organisierung eines europäischen Hochschulraumes nach angelsächsischem Vorbild mit dem Fokus auf „Ausbildung“ nach ökonomischem Nutzen – die zweite Bildungskatastrophe wenn nicht hervorgerufen, so doch maßgeblich verstärkt. Und dies angesichts der schwersten Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise, die die Bundesrepublik erlebt hat – wobei vieles dafür spricht, dass sich die verschiedenen Krisen gegenseitig bedingen und verschärfen. Zu der komplexen Problematik können hier nur einige Aspekte thematisiert werden.

1. Statistische Daten und aktuelle Lage

Vorab sollen einige nüchterne Zahlen einen ersten Eindruck von der bundesrepublikanischen Hochschullandschaft vermitteln: Derzeit gibt es – der Übersicht „Hochschulrektorenkonferenz: Hochschulen in Zahlen 2009“ zufolge – 355 Hochschulen insgesamt, davon 118 Universitäten, 182 Fachhochschulen, 55 Kunst- und Musikhochschulen; 233 befinden sich in staatlicher, 122 in nichtstaatlicher aber staatlich anerkannter, 82 in privater und 40 in kirchlicher Trägerschaft. Die Zahl der an den Hochschulen Beschäftigten belief sich im Jahre 2009 auf insgesamt 518 613, davon gehören 260 064 Personen zum wissenschaftlichen und künstlerischen Personal. Dieses gliedert sich wie folgt auf: 38 020 sind ProfessorInnen, 6 157 DozentInnen und AssistentInnen, 123 545 sonstige wissenschaftliche und künstlerische MitarbeiterInnen und 7 231 Lehrkräfte für besondere Aufgaben. Zu den Finanzen sei hier soviel angeführt: Die Gesamteinnahmen der Hochschulen beliefen sich 2009 auf 32 Milliarden Euro; 3,9 Milliarden davon stammen aus sogenannten Drittmitteln, von denen wiederum die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 1,1 und die Wirtschaft 1,0 Milliarden beisteuern.

Im Zeichen neoliberaler Politik und zunehmend globalisierter Ökonomie sind die alten Vorstellungen von der Staats- wie Marktferne der Forschung und Lehre vielerorts aufgegeben worden. Die Universitäten sind funktionieren nunmehr oftmals als staatliche oder private Infrastruktureinrichtungen, die marktnahen Wissens- und Technologietransfer für die nationalen und internationalen Märkte liefern. In vielen Studiengängen ist nicht mehr „Bildung“, sondern „Ausbildung“ gefragt, die sich an Arbeitsplätzen orientiert, und die damit den wirtschaftlichen Bedarf zum Bezugspunkt macht.

Die aktuelle bildungs- und hochschulpolitische Situation ist nun derart verworren, ja desolat, stellt überdies zugleich die Funktionalität des tradierten föderativen Systems infrage und erweist sich als Hindernis für die Entwicklung der Hochschulen. So hat vor kurzem die Bundeskanzlerin verwegen die „Bildungsrepublik Deutschland“ ausgerufen und die CDU-FDP-Koalition in Berlin propagiert in der Debatte um die Sanierung der Staatsfinanzen und um Sparprogramme den „Vorrang für Bildung und Forschung“ (Frankfurter Rundschau vom 10.6.2010). Da der Bund jedoch nur über geringe Kompetenzen auf dem Gebiet von Bildung und Kultur verfügt, die Länder hingegen die Kulturhoheit innehaben, kommt es entscheidend darauf an, was dort geschieht und was für eine Politik namentlich CDU-geführte Landesregierungen betreiben. So hat kürzlich der Ministerpräsident von Hessen und stellvertretende CDU-Vorsitzende erklärt, dass Kürzungen bei Schule und Universität kein Tabu seien. Dementsprechend streicht das Land den Hochschulen bis 2015 jährlich 30 Millionen Euro. In Sachsen stehen gewaltige Kürzungen von 24 Millionen im Jahre 2010 an, womit sich die Lage zuspitzt, nachdem seit 2003 bereits 1 200 Stellen, darunter allein 400 Professuren, gestrichen wurden. Ein anderes Beispiel: Im hochverschuldeten Schleswig-Holstein erfährt der Präsident der Universität Lübeck, dass die Schließung der renommierten und durchaus erfolgreichen medizinischen Fakultät anstehe (Frankfurter Rundschau vom 10.06.2010).

2. Bologna-Reform

Im Jahre 1999 vereinbarten im italienischen Bologna zunächst 29 Wissenschaftsminister, für Europa einen gemeinsamen Hochschulraum zu schaffen. Das Kernstück besteht in einer einheitlichen Studienstruktur mit den aufeinander aufbauenden Abschlüssen Bachelor, Master und Promotion. Mittlerweile haben etwa 95 Prozent der europäischen Hochschulen auf das neue System umgestellt. Für Deutschland bedeutet die Übernahme der am angelsächsischen Modell orientierten Reform die Abkehr von einer 200 jährigen Tradition und von einer im Großen und Ganzen bewährten Studienstruktur mit anerkannten Abschlüssen. Bei einer Zwischenbilanz, die die European University Association mit einer Studie vorgelegt hat (vgl: Frankfurter Rundschau vom 10. und 13/14.3.2010) und die zum Teil sehr widersprüchlich ausfällt, treten deutlich die Schwächen des Bologna-Prozesses beziehungsweise seiner Umsetzung in der Bundesrepublik zutage.

Es sieht so aus, als wären zwei Kernziele der Reform verfehlt worden. Zum einen sollte die Mobilität der Studierenden und der WissenschaftlerInnen erhöht werden. Selbst nach zehn Jahren können die Universitäten nicht eindeutig festmachen, ob der Wechsel von Land und Hochschule erleichtert worden ist. Zwischen 2007 und 2009 stieg die Zahl deutscher Studierender mit Auslandserfahrung gerade mal von 23 auf 26 Prozent – gemessen an den Vorstellung des Bundesbildungsministeriums von 50 Prozent ein nicht gerade berauschendes Ergebnis – zumal es primär die Studierenden der alten Magister- und Diplomstudiengänge sind, die die Muße zum Studium in einem anderen Lande haben. Zum anderen stellt sich die Lage beim zweiten Hauptziel, junge Leute früher in Lohn und Brot zu bringen, ebenfalls nicht rosig dar. So hapert es bei der Akzeptanz der Bachelor-Abschlüsse im Lager der Arbeitgeber, die diese neue Qualifikation oft nicht voll anerkennen, so dass hier der Master als die Eingangsqualifikation für den Beruf betrachtet wird. Und nicht zuletzt ist mit Blick auf die zunehmend verschulte Hochschullehre längst klar geworden, dass der Bologna-Prozeß ohne zusätzliches Personal und Aufstockung der Finanzen nicht zu bewältigen ist.

3. Bildung und soziale Herkunft

Neuere Studien zum Bildungssystem und zu den Bildungswegen in Deutschland haben wieder gezeigt, dass ein unmittelbarer Zusammenhang zwischen sozialer Herkunft und Bildungschancen besteht, der wohl in kaum einem anderen Land größer ist. Kinder aus „gutem Hause“ gelangen eher an das Gymnasium und an die Universität als Kinder, deren Eltern nicht studiert haben und über keinen gehoben sozialen Status verfügen. Angehörige der Arbeiterschaft sind an den Hochschulen nach wie vor unterrepräsentiert. Während von 100 Akademikerkindern 83 auf eine Fachhochschule oder eine Universität gehen, sind es bei Nichtakademikerkindern lediglich 23, so die 18. Sozialerhebung des Deutschen Studentenwerkes. Hierher gehört auch, dass nicht einmal jeder zweite Abiturient, der aus ärmeren Verhältnissen stammt, ein Studium anvisiert. Generell rangiert die  Studienanfängerquote in Deutschland unter dem OECD-Durchschnitt. Der Bildungsgipfel vom Juni 2010 hat nun ins Auge gefasst, dass nicht 35 Prozent wie bisher, sondern 40 Prozent der Hochschulberechtigten ein Studium aufnehmen sollen. Wo die Studienplätze herkommen, wie das zusätzliche Lehrpersonal finanziert wird und wo die künftigen AkademikerInnen dann Arbeitsplätze finden sollen, steht jedoch dahin.

Eine weitere Diskriminierung besteht bei Kindern mit so genanntem „Migrationshintergrund“, von denen nur 13 Prozent ein Gymnasium besuchen; bei den anderen Kindern sind es 40 Prozent. Diese Tendenzen setzen sich an den Hochschulen fort. Junge Menschen, die Migrantenfamilien angehören, haben auch an den Hochschulen hohe Hürden zu überwinden, obwohl sie ein riesiges Potential darstellen. Immerhin bieten, wie 4ING, der Dachverein der Fakultätentage der Ingenieurwissenschaften und der Informatik an Universitäten in einer unveröffentlichten Studie feststellt (vgl. Frankfurter Rundschau vom 20.05.2010), technische Disziplinen, die nicht so hohe sprachliche Anforderungen stellen, gute Chancen. Brachten die Ingenieurwissenschaften früher soziale Aufsteiger aus der Arbeiterschaft hervor, sind es heute eher junge Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund.

4. Soziale Schieflagen bei der Studienförderung

In der Bundesrepublik erhalten von den rund 2 Millionen Studierenden lediglich 2 Prozent ein Stipendium. Diese werden in der Hauptsache von den zwölf Begabtenförderwerken vergeben, wie etwa von der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes oder von den Stiftungen der politischen Parteien. Davon profitieren bislang jedoch nicht etwa die weniger gut gestellten StudentInnen, sondern die Nachkommen bildungsnaher und einkommensstärkerer Familien, die finanzielle Unterstützung weniger nötig haben. Das jetzt von der Bundesregierung geplante nationale Stipendienprogramm, mit dem künftig bis zu acht Prozent der besten StudentInnen mit monatlich 300 Euro gefördert werden sollen, dürfte nach Ansicht von Kritikern die soziale Auslese an den Hochschulen noch verschärfen anstatt sie zu mildern. Allerdings hat der Bundesrat dieses Programm fürs Erste blockiert.

Ungleichgewichte und Defizite in der Gleichstellung gibt es nach wie vor zwischen den Geschlechtern, wie aus dem Material der „Hochschulrektorenkonferenz: Hochschulen in Zahlen 2009“, anhand von Veröffentlichungen des Statistischen Bundesamtes ersichtlich. Zwar sind Frauen generell auf dem Vormarsch, aber es bleiben gravierende Benachteiligungen. So hat sich der Anteil der Studentinnen, der Anfang der 1990er Jahre noch bei rund 40 Prozent lag, bis zum Jahre 2009 bei 2,01 Millionen Studierenden insgesamt und 0,96 Millionen Frauen auf annähernd 48 Prozent erhöht. Und bei den AbsolventInnen – 286 391 gesamt, 145 380 weibliche und 141 011 männliche – haben die Frauen mittlerweile die Männer überflügelt. Aber bei den Promotionen (Gesamt 23 843; Frauen 10 068; Männer 13 775) und noch eklatanter bei den Habilitationen (Gesamt 1 881; Frauen 457; 1 424 Männer) schneiden die Frauen weitaus schlechter ab. Nimmt man die Verhältnisse bei den Professuren hinzu, wird deutlich, dass das weibliche Geschlecht hierbei seit Beginn der 1990er Jahre, als es etwa 7 Prozent dieser Stellen innehatten, ebenfalls Boden gutmachen konnten, aber mit rund 17 Prozent im Jahre 2008 immer noch weitaus geringere Chancen hatte, gut dotierte und sichere Positionen zu erlangen. Ingesamt wird ein beträchtliches intellektuelles Potential von Frauen für die Wissenschaft und Hochschule vergeudet, während aus dem Pool der männlichen Kandidaten im Umkehrschluss notwendigerweise auch weniger gut qualifizierte ausgewählt werden.

5. Prekäre Arbeitsbedingungen an den Universitäten

Große Probleme tun sich sodann auf hinsichtlich der Beschäftigungsverhältnisse des wissenschaftlichen Personals. Da ist Deutschland etwa im Vergleich zu den USA oder zu anderen europäischen Ländern ein „ziemlicher Ausreißer“, so der Hochschulforscher Reinhard Kreckel. Während anderswo ein sehr viel höherer Anteil – in den USA die Hälfte – der WissenschaftlerInnen festbestallte Professorenstellen innehat, sind es hier nur rund 17 Prozent. Dem akademischen Mittelbau stehen dagegen in der Regel nur befristete Stellen zur Verfügung mit einer maximalen Laufzeit von zwölf Jahren, während anderswo befristete Posten bei Bewährung entfristet werden. Nach Ablauf der 12-jährigen sogenannten Qualifizierungsphase besteht keine Möglichkeit einer Weiterbeschäftigung auf befristeten Stellen mehr. Betroffene haben es ab diesem Zeitpunkt denkbar schwer, noch in anderen als dem wissenschaftlichen Sektor eine Beschäftigung zu finden. Vielfach liegen prekäre Arbeitsbedingungen vor, befristete Drittmittelstellen und Teilzeitbeschäftigung, die lange eine Frauendomäne war, neuerdings aber auch bei Männern rasant zugenommen hat – und das Ganze bei bescheidenen Gehältern, hohem bürokratischen Aufwand, hoher Arbeitsbelastung über die tariflichen Arbeitszeiten hinaus. So endet für viele NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen die Tätigkeit an der Hochschule in einer „Karrieresackgasse“, es sei denn, es gelingt der Absprung in andere Bereiche oder ins Ausland, wo vielfach attraktivere Bedingungen gegeben sind. Zahlen Auswanderung CH, USA?

Auch derzeitige Fördermaßnahmen wie die Exzellenzinitiative oder die BMBF-Initiative „Förderung für die Geisteswissenschaften“, die vorübergehend die finanziellen Bedingungen in einigen, auf Wettbewerbsbasis ausgewählten Institutionen, Programmen oder Projekten erheblich verbessern, sorgen nicht für die Etablierung langfristiger, nachhaltiger Strukturen und gesicherter Arbeitsverhältnisse. Denn auch hier handelt es sich um zeitlich begrenzte Fördermaßnahmen.

Etwas anderes kommt noch hinzu, nämlich die auffallend hohe Kinderlosigkeit im akademischen Mittelbau, die in der Altergruppe der 20-40Jährigen bei über 70 Prozent liegt. Bei der Professorenschaft verhält es sich so, dass zwei Drittel der Männer Väter sind, während nur ein Drittel der Professorinnen Kinder hat. Es ist offensichtlich, dass sich Professoren wegen der gesicherten Zukunft und wegen der finanziellen Möglichkeiten sich zu entlasten, Kinder eher leisten können. Indessen betrachten es die Bildungsforscherinnen Ingrid Metz-Göckel und Inken Lind als eine „kleine kulturelle Sensation“, dass es überhaupt Mütter in der Wissenschaft gibt, die nicht weniger erfolgreich sind als andere.

Die eingangs erwähnten Proteste nun scheinen nicht ganz spurlos an der Hochschulpolitik vorbeigegangen zu sein. Korrekturen etwa bei den Studienplänen sind hie und da geplant, die Erhöhung der Mittel für die Lehre ist im Gespräch. Ob damit die „gewachsenen Fachstandards und Diskursfelder“ wiederhergestellt und der von Ulrich Beck konstatierten „McDonaldisierung der deutschen Universität“ Einhalt geboten werden kann, wird zu bezweifeln sein. Die Bologna-Reform jedenfalls, die mit Tendenzen der „Uniformierung, Zeitbeschränkung, Fremdbestimmung und Bagatellisierung der freien Wissenschaft“, wie Peter Finke konstatiert, verbunden ist, beschleunigt die Ökonomisierung und Bürokratisierung der Universität. Wolfgang Eßbach bietet rückblickend auf die letzten Reformen einen Ausblick: „Jetzt sagen viele, das haben wir nicht gewollt. Das stimmt mich optimistisch“.

Since the national-liberal government started reforming the university system in the 1980’s the Danish university system has to some degree been a research laboratory for NPM (New Public Management) university system reforms. Students and university staff are thus well acquainted with major changes in managerial and financial structure of their institutions. They know that the political discourse about knowledge economy and the importance of education and research, which emanates from the highest levels, generally seems more like hot air.

The fist round of major educational reforms hit the universities in the 1980s in a period of national conservative rule. These changes were responsible for major cut backs in research and educational budgets and for attempts to direct university education and research toward the private sector. To the social sciences educations this meant a very rapid and high growth business and management studies and a relative stagnation of the other major social science disciplines. In the late 1980’s it involved the closing of the two sociological departments in Denmark. Through the 1990s funding for social science research rose, but mostly allocated through various politically and bureaucratically controlled pools and projects that directed research towards specific topics and research areas or as evaluations and development projects within the public sector. In short, one can say that the tools of NPM of the market oriented neo-liberal government were developed in the 1980’s under national conservative governance, but were enlarged and implemented throughout the educational and research sectors in the 1990’s under social democratic rule.

The last ten years, once again under national conservative government, have continued the changes and in the same direction. Regarding higher education, the last ten years, just as in the rest of Europe, have been marked by the Bologna Process. Education has been oriented more toward future employment (employability) and less toward academic ‘Bildung’ and there has been an increasing emphasis on getting the students through their education faster and cheaper. On an organisational level the authority to approve the supervision of education has been relocated from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Invasion in to a newly created institution – ACE Denmark – which should oversee higher education in Denmark through a comprehensive evaluation every five years. Organisational changes have weakened the autonomy of the university in relation to the bureaucratic field and required the expansion of bureaucratic structures at universities in order to fulfil the demands for documentation and evaluation.

When looking at the organisation of the research, the major trends are striking. The first is the increasing centralisation and ‘professionalization’ of the university administration and second the increasing competition for funds and positions. The major changes came in 2003 with the passing of a new university law (Wright and Ørberg 2008), which removed the last bit of democratic influence gained in the early 1970’s over the management of universities. From then on managers at all levels where ‘professionalized’, meaning that new ‘leaders’ where hired and made responsible to (and mainly focused on) managerial levels above and not to staff and students.

But centralisation can not only be found within universities. In the same period Danish universities and governmental research institutions have been forced to merge, leading to large centralised agencies. The latest event in this process of centralisation and race for ‘efficiency’ has been the re-organisation of the independent Danish Research Councils, reducing the amount of research in the independent councils and the tying them more closely to the strategic and applied part of public funding.

In the same period the competition for funds has increased both on an institutional and an individual level. In order to increase the efficiency of the universities, two measures have been taken in the last years. A growing part of public funding to the universities is being allocated through a system much like the Norwegian one (see Karin Widerberg’s post on this side), on the basis of relative productivity measured by the amount and quality of publications, patents, etc. This kind of reform, of course, leads managers to focus on the productivity of individual researchers in order to secure the budget and the relative position of the institution (university, faculty, department or section).  But simultaneously it leads to an increased competition between researchers and may lead to a devaluation of activities other than those leading directly to publications.

To this end the Ministry of Science has put together 62 different specialist working groups to produces ‘accreditation lists’, containing ‘authorised’ journals and publishers divided in to two categories. According to the now former chairman for the working group for sociology and social work, Professor Annic Prieur, this job has been both thankless and almost senseless due to its bureaucratic setup and due to the likely effects both on the allocation of funds between institutions and the relations among researchers (Dansk Sociologi, nr. 4 vol. 20, 2009, p. 99-106).

On top these planned administrative and financial changes the Danish economy has, like the rest of the world, been seriously affected by the financial crisis. To avoid budget deficits the government has made major cutbacks that will also hit research and educational institutions. As a result of the announced budget reductions, which are equally distributed among the Danish universities, the University of Copenhagen (Denmark’s largest research institution at the moment) will have to lay off between 400 and 700 employees or some where between 5 and 10 % of its total employees, according to the president of the university. In the end, how many people the universities will have to fire or how the cut backs will be carried through is still unclear, but that it will effect both teaching and research is certain.

But have these multiple changes, leading to the deterioration of conditions for students and researchers led to any major protests? No, not really. There have, of course, been spontaneous protests and demonstrations arranged by students and unions, but none of these initiatives have had any visible effects. So, interesting enough, despite the strong concentration of ‘cultural capital’ at the universities, no common movement has been mobilised and few alternatives have been formulated. The reasons for this surprising silence from, in other situations, a very outspoken university community, may be the unclear consequences of the changes, but also the fact that the reforms have beneficiaries within academia. Many of the changes within the research institutions have been used to strengthen specific managerial positions and research on politically hot topics. The reforms are, thus, not only administrative changes, but reflect changes in power relations within academia, that can also shape the knowledge that is produced. We must not ignore these changes – neither the academic nor the political – but instead we need to scrutinise and discuss their consequences and formulate possible countermeasures.

References

Kropp, K. & Blok, A. 2009, “Mode 2 sociologies in Denmark? From crisis to stabilization in times of pressures for policy-relevant research, 1980s-2000s.” In Facing an Unequal World – Challengers for Global Sociology, Vol.III (Taiwan: International Sociological Association and Academia Sinica, 2010)

Wright, S. & Ørberg, J.W. 2008. Autonomy and control: Danish university reform in the context of modern governance. Learning and Teaching, 1, 27-57

[1] For a more comprehensive history of changes in the organization of Danish social science, and especially Danish sociology, please see Kropp and Blok (2009))

All is never well in the Universities of India. Since independence (1947) experiments with structure and content of university/higher education system has been interminable. The abysmal disparity in terms of access to higher education and availability of everything else necessary to attain quality higher education is disappointing to say the least. The hangover of the colonial proclivity and its associated predicaments coupled with the culture of control by the state and the political parties in power made the higher education system of India a chronically suffering one.

Most significantly, in India, the growth of first-rate institutions of higher learning has been negligible, except of course some institutes in Science and Technology. As a result, Indian higher education has often been characterized as a sea of mediocrity containing only a few isles of distinction. Aside from concerns of access and quality is also the issue of equity. Socially and economically disadvantaged groups e.g. especially women in the system are under-represented and their educational attainments tend to be below average. The key problems faced by Indian higher education pertain to issues of access, equity, and quality; rural-urban and regional imbalances; and without a shadow of doubt centralization, bureaucratization and politicization of the whole education system.

Although estimates vary, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education can be estimated at somewhere between 7 and 11 percent. According to the National Knowledge Commission it is only seven per cent of the population i.e., between the age group of 18-24 who enter higher education.[1]  Even those who have access are not ensured of quality.  Despite having over 350 universities, not a single Indian university is listed in the top 100 universities of the world.

The enrolment of women in higher education is traditionally measured by the Gender Parity Index (GPI), which is a ratio of female GER to male GER. The GPI in 2005 using Indian Census and UGC (University Grants Commission, the apex body responsible for coordination, determination and maintenance of standards, and release of grants) data is calculated to be 0.75.[2] When compared to a relevant-age population ratio of 0.91 (i.e. female population aged 18-24 as a ratio of male population aged 18-24), it appears that women are significantly under-represented in higher education. It is especially pertinent that the GPI throughout school (grades I to XII) is 0.91.[3] This suggests a tendency for women to drop out of the education system after grade XII, exposing the false promises of so-called “women’s empowerment” in higher education.

Regional inequalities in higher education also deserve mention in order to highlight the uneven nature of growth in this sector over the last few years. Approximately 58 percent of all higher education institutions are located in only six states – Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu[4] – which are also among the ten most populated states of India[5]. This selection of states reflects the considerable growth of institutions in South and West India relative to other regions. In case of gender parity, states and Union Territories like Goa, Chandigarh, Kerala, Delhi, Punjab and Pondicherry are most favorable for women relative to men, whereas Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Rajasthan are at the opposite end of the spectrum. Regional data within India, suggest significant imbalances in the capacity and sophistication of systems for higher education between the South and West on the one hand, and the North, East and Northeast on the other.

The symptoms are so grievous that in order to revamp  the higher education system two sets of recommendations were recently made by the National Knowledge  Commission (NKC) formed in 2005 and the Committee to Advise on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education, formed in 2008. In response to these reports, the government drafted a Bill on higher education and put it in the public domain.  The draft National Commission for Higher Education and Research Bill, 2010(NCHER)  seeks to establish the National Commission for Higher Education and Research whose members shall be appointed by the President on the recommendation of the selection committee (which includes the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, and the Speaker). The Commission shall take measures to promote the autonomy of higher education and for facilitating access, inclusion and opportunities to all.  It may specify norms for granting authorization to a university, develop a national curriculum framework, specify requirements of academic quality for awarding a degree, specify minimum eligibility conditions for appointment of Vice Chancellors, maintain a national registry, and encourage universities to become self regulatory.  Vice Chancellors shall be appointed on the recommendation of collegiums of eminent personalities.  The national registry shall be maintained with the names of persons eligible for appointment as Vice Chancellor or head of institution of national importance.  Any person can appeal a decision of the Commission to the National Educational Tribunal.

Unfortunately, for all Indians, this bill seems to bring another nightmare, if not a catastrophe. The NCHER represents the most extreme proposal to centralize power in higher education that could be imagined. Instead of rationalizing regulation, it creates a structure that makes the UGC Act look positively innocuous. The commission is entrusted with promoting university autonomy but instead of freeing the universities/ higher education from culture of control, it drops the word autonomy on occasion as icing on the cake. It is paradoxical, to say the least, to require a central regulatory agency to promote autonomy. The very section that talks of autonomy gives the commission a blanket mandate to regulate everything from syllabi, course structures, appointments, rules, administrative protocols etc. The Bill does not distinguish between public and private universities and fuses funding and regulatory agencies, which is nothing less than catastrophic.

The idea of co-option permeates the collegium and the national registry and consequently there will be intense political intrigue to secure nominations as a co-opted fellow at different state levels. If this bill goes through, we will get centralization instead of decentralization, control instead of autonomy, homogenization instead of variety, bureaucratization instead of flexibility, institutional rigidity instead of novelty and a winner takes all approach to regulation. And nepotism will undeniably have its heyday. The hegemonic mediocrity, backed by state power, is seeking  to control the universities/higher education in order to carry out their agenda in the most stealthy way – all in the name of reform. We have already experienced this sort of political control in many faculty appointments, especially in the so-called left-liberal states of India, decade after decade. Are we again going to get a travesty wearing the mantle of reform which reward those who can memorize and parrot information but cannot decipher or apply knowledge while suffocating those with analytical and independent minds and those who question the status-quo?

[2] The MHRD estimate for the same year is 0.71. See MHRD, Selected Educational Statistics 2004-2005, (New Delhi, MHRD, 2007), p.71. 

[3] MHRD, Selected Educational Statistics 2004-2005.

[4] MHRD, Selected Educational Statistics 2004-2005.

[5] Census of India 2001, Census Data Online.

Reduced Russian Version

The essential paradox to all education consists of a tension between the autonomous moment of thought that inevitably makes learning authoritarian and non-democratic and the moment of dialogue with the free thought of a student who demands that the university be an open and ultra-democratic space. This tension has always existed but is particularly relevant today as democratization and commercialization threaten the autonomy of universities, as the political and economic ideology of our world (calculative liberalism and discipline) remains a theoretical product, an example of what Lacan called the “academic discourse”.[1] In what follows, I will show how, in contemporary Russia, this tension produces a situation that is both critical and symptomatic.

A global crisis of the university

Current global trends in the sphere of higher education are characterized, as we know, by the dismantling of the “German” system of specialized education that mainly consisted of professors offering monologue courses. In reality, this system was already inadequate in the 1950-60s when higher education became a mass institution and, moreover, when these “masses” no longer wanted to be “instructed” in an authoritarian manner. Universities became factories, increasingly “postindustrial”. The student movement was no doubt progressive in its demands for democratization and opening of education to new ideas. However, it also created a tension within the core of the institution: by definition, education cannot be completely “democratic” for it requires the autonomy and freedom of teachers who must guide students through a critique of their preexisting opinions.

Today, following the democratic revolution of universities, there is a new revolution in Europe: the commercial revolution. Universities are required to meet the demands and questionings of society, which are expressed, for example, in the economic sphere. This, again, is not completely false. Ideas of social or practical relevance are more likely to thrive. Yet the danger is, of course, that the idea may become too dependent on other “demands” and “interests”. The university must keep its right to ask questions and not only to give answers.[2] This can only be possible if the university is not enclosed in a “ghetto” but remains a public institution where scholars participate in social practices themselves and where, ideally, they divide their time between “real” practice and teaching.

The “Bologna process” has had important consequences for the reform of higher education in Europe. There has been nothing like it over the course of the last 50 years. The main task of this “process” was to introduce the Anglo-American model with its system of “credits” and to standardize courses in two levels: “bachelor” and “master”. In itself, this reform could be useful and provide, for example, greater mobility for students from different countries in Europe. However, in the last few years we have seen how this reform involved unstated measures that “spontaneously” corresponded to the neoliberal politics of several European governments. The Bologna process allows governments to reintroduce fees for education, at least at its higher level (MA), which not only lead to increased inequalities but also transform the social function and content of education. Students who plunge into debt in order to finance their education will seek a program that will later allow them to get a well-paid job and pay off their debt. The formalization and standardization of courses has increased administrative control over the teaching body, making the latter more fragile and vulnerable. The “bachelor” level aims explicitly at providing basic general education (not specialized). In reality, with the exception of technological research, more specialized college education is of little use for the contemporary labor market, which requires general communication and organizational skills. The process of Bologna thus follows these lines, even though it does not explicitly deal with the radical transformation of the content of education or the reduction of funding for universities.

It is thus not surprising that this “process” has lead to protests, especially on behalf of the teaching body and of students themselves. Perceived within the framework of “neoliberal” reforms aiming to privatize the social sector, this process simultaneously introduces standardized commercial formalities in all spheres of society. Nevertheless, the need to reform education institutions in Europe is obvious: in France, for example, universities have been underfinanced for decades, remain relatively closed to young professors and often continue to apply the old model of “unilateral” lectures given by professors to students. The risk is that the reform may not only lead to transforming the system, but also and especially to destroy the intellectual character of French education and its exceptionally high effectiveness in the reproduction of knowledge. It would be even worse if the university were to loose the public role it plays in French society.

Although the Bologna process is global (countries outside of the EU such as Russia are also included and it brings the European system closer to its North-American homologue), this does not imply that its effects, including the specific content of the changes it brings about, are everywhere the same. In the United States, for example, a system that is similar to that of “Bologna” has been in place for a long time, yet universities (at least the “top” ones) are usually able to keep their autonomy and the informality of their teaching (even if an applied and pragmatic approach to science is profoundly characteristic of American culture). Nevertheless, in the last few years, the American university has also undergone a neoliberal transformation: fewer professors are reaching tenure and academic work is becoming more precarious and less autonomous. An example of the direct consequences of these changes can be found in the recent conflict (December 2008) at the New School of Social Research in New York where professors and students lead a public protest against the commercialization of the school by their president.[3] In this sense, this is not a case of the Americanization of Europe, but rather a global crisis of the university.

Higher education in Russia

This is the context necessary for a discussion of higher education in Russia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, higher education was radically transformed through an extreme neoliberal reform. As a vanguard of neoliberalism (I will explain this later), Russia remains a symptom of what neoliberals could and would like to achieve elsewhere, if only they were not limited by social inertia and the resistance put forth by civil society. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to say that neoliberalism in Russia is the same as in Europe or North America. In those countries, “neoliberalism” exists within a system of forces that are located somewhere between old conservatism and social democracy and while it may, in part, represent their synthesis, it also cancels them out. In Russia, neoliberalism exists only to the extent to which it is fused with the institutions of the post-soviet state that have kept their structure, institutional culture and a large part of their staff. Thus, in contrast to Europe and the United States, neoliberalism in Russia is rarely recognized or criticized as such: the opposition perceives the regime as corrupt and authoritarian and the liberal-democratic opposition often combines the language of neoliberalism (denouncing economic inefficiency or the lack of transparency) with slogans of “liberal” democracy (e.g. the “Other Russia”).

Indeed, the neoliberal reforms that took place in the 1990s and 2000s were not fully carried out. Instead, they created an odd society where neoliberalism was a form that allowed (post)soviet institutions to continue to exist—on condition that they reorient themselves towards making business. Social security remained well protected by law but this did not prevent its destruction in practice. The extreme precariousness of work (a large mass of workers did not have a permanent contract, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants) coexists with a rather solid system of social security that is imposed by the state. Due to this system, employers prefer to avoid it, often through informal means.

Moreover, the collapse of communist ideology created a climate of anomie where corruption or at least tax avoidance was not generally perceived as reprehensible. For example, beginning in the 1990s, health is both public and private but doctors are not well paid by the state. Thus, they tend to use their positions and the infrastructure of their clinics to offer profitable services to those in need and with the means to pay for them, although not always in an official manner.

Universities went through a similar process. Education remained free for those who passed the entrance examination but several deans established a system of bribes that parents must pay to enroll students. Furthermore, other official means of seeking revenues were developed including increasing the number of students who pay fees (for those who did not pass the entrance examination) and renting university buildings to firms.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of students has increased from approximately 3 to 6 million, which represents more than half of the population aged between 17 and 22. The number of educational institutions has also doubled since 1990, mainly due to the emergence of private institutions.[4] Meanwhile, professors employed by the state received miniscule salaries during the 1990s—in average, around 100 dollars per month. If one was not corrupt, then one had to teach several courses in several institutions. However, a position at the State University that was not well paid might still give a professor access to teaching less prestigious but better paid courses. Even today, the salary of a lecturer at the State University is insufficient and most people rely on taking on 2 or 3 positions.

The changing hierarchy among disciplines

Change in the content of what is taught in higher education varies across institutions and disciplines. In the Soviet Union, natural sciences were the most highly developed worldwide. In the 1990s, specialists in these disciplines (math, physics) massively fled the country. The collapse of the Russian economy destroyed the demand for scientists and these disciplines lost their prestige. The humanities taught in the Soviet Union were strongly ideological and their status was inferior to that of the natural sciences. However, there was a strong philology tradition of authors that were known in the West such as the “Tartu-Moscou” school of semiotics (Yu. Lotman, M. Gasparov, among others). In the 1990s, the members of this school also fled the country.

With regards to the social sciences, their situation in the USSR was the saddest of all: a dogmatic version of Marxism-Leninism dominated philosophy, the political sciences did not exist and sociology did not have its own department. Psychology was the exception as it had its own faculty within universities and developed a true school of Marxist psychology (ideologically close to the trend officially referred to as socialist “humanities”). Despite their rather mediocre level, the study of “ideological” disciplines was an important part of a bureaucratic career in the USSR.

Most of the western classics of social thought of the 20^th Century were forbidden. Numerous intellectuals, who were critical of the regime and had no access to what was being produced and discussed at a global level, abandoned Marxism and turned to either classic liberalism or national conservatism. The mandatory teaching of marxism nevertheless contributed to the general intellectual culture of soviet officials who were given special perks if they seriously studied Hegel and Marx.

The humanities and social sciences nevertheless became the most popular and prestigious disciplines in the 1990s. This change was partially brought about due to the role sociology played in the perestroika by calling attention to protests and public opinion. This shift was also linked to the “boom” of previously forbidden writings from the 20^th Century that suddenly became accessible. Yet this transformation was mainly tied to the changing structure of the economy. The Russian industry suffered greatly throughout the neoliberal reforms: the reorientation towards a service economy or “immaterial work” was inevitable and was bizarrely simultaneous to the crash of the economy.

There was no work in the factory (and when there was, salaries were not really paid) and the money that circulated in the economy was invested in consumption and services that were unheard of before such as psychotherapy. The commercialization of products of mass consumption was new to Russia and developed a demand for studies in marketing and advertising, which relied on sociological methods. Finally, democratic elections at all levels with no parties or stable voters relied heavily on their public relations specialists who were referred to as “political technicians” in Russian. Towards the end of the 1990s, with the gradual recovery of the economy, there was a rise in the number of “firms” and positions for managers (often with an unspecified degree).

Thus, many students thought their choice of discipline would have little influence over their future career. Students chose social sciences and humanities because they were relatively easy. All of the above changed the hierarchy of disciplines of the soviet era and made social sciences and humanities popular and prestigious—even profitable for corrupt officials. The most popular disciplines then (and now) are law and economy.

The reform changed the content of degrees in sociology, political sciences, psychology and philosophy. The massive import of western theories and the abandonment (often demonization) of Marxism lead to a spectacular ideological disorientation as well as the destruction of the existing Soviet schools. Yet the teaching staff was practically the same since the state did not dare reduce the number of professors and researchers. The state kept all teaching staff, including orthodox Marxist-Leninists who in several cases became orthodox liberals and then orthodox nationalists.

Thus, the opening-up to the West produced an import and not an export of social knowledge. Contrary to natural sciences and even humanities, few Russian scholars in the social sciences are well-known in the West—with the exception of area specialists or Russian specialists working on Russia and living “in the field”.[5] Language barriers, the selectiveness of translations and above all, the lack of understanding of current debates in the West as well as the lack of interest from the West (with its “market” closed to competing texts and individuals) have made it difficult to have a productive dialogue between Russian traditions and American and European ones. As a result, the Russian academia is becoming increasingly closed; nationalism is becoming more and more popular among social sciences professors, while rare and exotic debates lead to the emergence of “new” endemic disciplines. Indeed, we have seen the emergence of “synergism” (a theoretical framework that is very popular in the Russian social sciences and that explains the functioning of society through the laws of cybernetics), “imagology” (the theory of “political technology”), “socionics”; “acmeology”, etc. That said, the autonomy given to the content of thought has allowed serious and original thinkers to benefit from the “luxury” that their young colleagues in Western countries often lack—the luxury to make progress at ones own pace without the pressure of competitors or “peer reviewers” who carry out disciplinary “censorship”.

Teaching methods have also changed. Although the structure of study programs has largely remained the same, the general social atmosphere, low salaries and even lower scholarships have created a new culture: students do not feel forced to attend class and instructors have no motivation to evaluate them rigorously. Under the Soviet and post-Soviet system, if a student received a “2” (a failing grade), the student had the right to take the exam again. This involved extra work for the instructor who also felt guilty since he knew he could ruin the life of an individual by giving him a bad grade. The number of low grades and especially failing ones has greatly diminished since the reforms.

The symptomatic case of the “OD-group” protests

What then was the result of these transformations? A very particular symbiosis emerged from the combination of a commercial logic and the logic of a self-sufficient institution. In a recent article, Mikhail Sokolov notes:

Higher education offers its clients a set of services that paradoxically exclude each other. On one side, it offers (or pretends to) a skill that is necessary for a career. On the other, it guarantees a moratorium, a period during which the youth can seek adventures, partners, and/or work that is not linked to the discipline they study. These two goods contradict each other: the higher the skill, the less the time for everything else. [In Russia], in all departments of Sociology, most students pay for this moratorium and not the skill and the institution, following the economic logic, must orient itself to the needs of the majority.[6]  

Sokolov’s article was written on the occasion of a student movement that emerged in 2007 against the administration of the Sociological Faculty in the State University of Moscow (MGU), more specifically, against its dean M. Dobrenkov. A group of students, the “OD-group” (20 to 30 out of the 2000 students in the faculty), engaged in public resistance in the spring of 2007. The immediate pretext was the student cafeteria where prices were as high as those of a good restaurant. However, students were mainly concerned with the quality of their education, as well as their lack of participation in research. The administration did not agree to the students’ demands. The dean called the police when the group organized a public protest and expelled most of the members of the group. During the scandal that followed, a commission of the Russian Social Chamber evaluated its teaching quite negatively and found several cases of plagiarism in a manual of sociology written by Dobrenkov. Despite all of this, the dean has kept his position and the students of the OD group had to continue their studies elsewhere.

The case of the Sociology Faculty at MGU is an extreme case. The dean’s personal convictions can be characterized as of extreme-right: he launched a campaign for the reinstitution of the death penalty and the prohibition of abortion. He also created a new discipline within his faculty called “orthodox sociology”. This is nevertheless a case that is symptomatic of what is happening more generally in the country. Sokolov, in the previously cited article, considers it symptomatic and elaborates a rather pessimistic diagnosis of the state of affairs of higher education in Russia and student mobilization based on a series of interviews carried out in different Russian universities.

One could first object that the situation in other institutions is different, especially if we do not limit ourselves to the faculties of social sciences of state universities. What is common and widespread is the priority given to administrative and commercial tasks over teaching and research. This means that an effective control over knowledge and intellectual skills is missing among students and professors. As everywhere in the Russian State, it is the inertia of the status quo, clientelism and commercial effectiveness that determine hiring policies. Yet Sokolov forgets that the university is not a commercial institution by its essence and even the reforms of the 1990s have not succeeded in transforming it to that extent. One does not usually choose a career in philosophy or sociology to make money or accumulate prestige. Furthermore, students are spontaneously interested in the subjects they study even if their interest is moderate. It is also true that the faculties of social sciences have several lecturers and researchers who are quite dedicated and sometimes even brilliant. They make the most of this state of relative anarchy and carry out their research without much trouble from the administration and without a constant pressure to publish. Given the widespread anarchy that dominates almost everything, a lot depends on the personality of the dean or the chair (the basic subdivision of Russian faculties).

Neoliberal reforms: the cure is worse than the disease

This leads us to another objection. We can tell from Sokolov’s choice of words that he relies on an economic approach to all social relations. This method implicitly draws from neoliberalism: it rests on the belief that the creation of formal and anonymous institutions (such as peer-reviewed journals) and researchers’ “rational choice” will make them good sociologists, political scientists or philosophers.[7] There is a Russian intellectual “party” (found on the website polit.ru) that is currently fighting for a radical reform of education in the Russian social sciences following the Anglo-American model. The government has already accepted some of their propositions. For example, for the last few years, the same written exam has been implemented to all high school students in order to determine their admission to the university. This measure aims to avoid corruption and it may be efficient. However, major universities (Moscow and St. Petersburg) have succeeded in resisting this measure on the grounds that this abstract and impersonal exam cannot allow them to determine a student’s talent in a specific area, especially if it is not taught in high school.

From my point of view, this institutional economics analysis and the technocratic measures mentioned above are only formal. These authors are not taking into account that corruption and plagiarism among university instructors does not only stem from “rational choice” but also from the extreme state of anomie these instructors find themselves in. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the ideological and ethical crisis that followed have transformed them into solitary and desperate individuals who focus only on their survival and do not believe in the possibility of an intellectual debate (although they may be strict in their convictions which has nothing to do with critical thinking).

The neoliberal technocratic reform that has already taken off in Russia with the Bologna process will not achieve radical change. In the best scenario, it will contribute to spread an annoying “normal science” where formal criteria will be respected at the cost of critical thinking. The few who will be able to publish in western journals will receive tenure and a disproportionately high salary, while other positions will decrease in number and pay. This will create a competitive spirit that will not always benefit research or intellectual institutions. Access to positions will be more difficult for young researchers. In the worst scenario, which is the most likely to occur, rules will be adapted to each situation. The rules established by peer-reviews will be followed, but the mandatory references will derive from “orthodox sociology”. The administration’s control over teaching will lead to bureaucratic authoritarianism over instructors. In the end, all will depend on the intellectual motivation and solidarity of researchers.

It is important to note that neoliberal measures aiming to avoid corruption can have consequences that are as harmful as or even worse than corruption: the formalization and standardization of intellectual life. In reality, these kinds of measures are based on the same principles as corruption: intellectuals’ anomic and cynical selfishness. Thus, it is not surprising that the formal technocratic measures that have been implemented have been unable to solve the problem of corruption, not to mention their inadequacy in taking on the task of mobilizing universities and society as a whole towards critical thinking.

The case of the European University of Saint-Petersburg

There was another case of student mobilization, this time around the closing of the European University of Saint-Petersburg. This is a special institution, one of the four new higher education institutions that were created in Russia in the 1990s with the support of American foundations that aimed at reproducing the institutional model of American universities. The European University offers postgraduate programs (M.A. and Ph.D.) as a replica of American graduate schools where students take a series of courses before writing their dissertations. The university is not part of the state and is not authorized to give out any official MA or PhD diploma. Nevertheless, students are attracted to the high quality of teaching and its relations with Western universities that may grant researchers access to an international network. The university was able to attract numerous Russian scholars with foreign diplomas. Scholars are mostly interested in studying different aspects of Russian society (e.g. the Russian mafia in the 1990s, the electoral process, the role of women in Russian society, the concept of the republic applied to the Russian case, etc.). In the beginning, the university could offer its employees a significant salary that was above average in Russia. However, in the 2000s, the Russian economy expanded, the cost of living increased and this financial difference was no longer significant; for many scholars, this became one workplace among others.

On February 8, 2008, firemen shut down the university for “security reasons” linked to irregularities in the building and all teaching was banned. It was quite obvious for anyone following Russian politics that the shutting down of the university was political. In 2007, the university opened a center for electoral studies financed by the European Union. High officials took notice of this institution created on the eve of parliamentary and presidential elections; President Putin and his assistant S. Yastrzhembsky made reference to the university in their speeches. Following a series of informal exchanges, the board of the university closed the “electoral” subdivision but by then, it was already too late: the university was closed by Russian authorities using the common method of relying on administrative law for political aims. The regime was visibly seeking to avoid a Western intervention in the electoral process as shown by the cases of Serbia or Ukraine. A series of public protests followed involving three main actions: informal negotiations with elites, open letters (one was signed by the members of the Russian Academy of Sciences) and, last but not least, public protests disguised as a series of “performances” organized by students. Students created a “University of the Streets” where they offered short conferences every week mainly focused on the history of student movements. Authorities finally agreed to their demands, maybe due to the political character of the university or perhaps out of fear of further student mobilization. On March 21, 2008 the university was reopened.

Three aspects of this history are symptomatic. First, authorities focused on an institution that has not been politically radical: most of its members defend objectivist positions in relation to society and their actions go no further than liberal criticism against any regime in power, which is representative of intelligentsia in general. The danger seemed to come from the West via its “foundations” although the university is currently seeking its funding from Russia. Those in charge of the secret police in Russia do not understand how Western foundations operate. They wanted to know what these foundations wanted in exchange for their financial support and were suspicious when told there was no real control over what knowledge was being produced. We know foundations have little interest in the content of academic work and are mostly interested in the general topic and the opinions of experts. Thus, the university was able to keep its freedom juggling its existence between two masters and avoiding complete submissiveness to capital’s demands on one side and the submission to the government on the other. It is thus interesting and paradoxical to see how an essentially neoliberal institution (a private university) could become one of the rare sites in Russia where free, innovative and internationally respected research is carried out.

What we can learn from this particular case of the European University is quite complex. The university’s position in the periphery might offer a perspective that encompasses a full vision of the global situation. Nevertheless, there are still strong limitations in attempting to create a synthesis between Russian and Western traditions or in making generalizations due to the fact that Russian intellectuals are only welcome in the West as Russian specialists. As a consequence of this demand and the popularity of positivist ideology (linked to neoliberalism), most of the research that is carried out at the European University is objectivist, i.e. centered around the study of effective causes and the analysis of external relations. Thus, the questions that are raised are more about tactics and less about strategy.

Second, student mobilization from the beginning was strongly linked to supporting a profession. There were slogans and public conferences but once the university was reopened, students “reentered the audience” and refused to continue their political activity. The other young activists that supported the movement continued to hold regular sessions at the “University of the Streets”[8] but the students from the European University stopped going. Reopening the university was thus effective in demobilizing students in protest. Thus, the situation is quite different from the OD-group: not only did this group loose its battle, many of its members became politically active in a sustained manner, developing an interest in sociology that is less objectivist and more activist in nature.

Third, the European University that struggled to survive its political crisis is currently plunged into a financial one. International foundations can no longer support the university to the same degree as they did before and the university is seeking support from Russian firms. This reorientation calls for an internal reform that is parallel to the most radical projects of neoliberal reform in Europe. The university’s restructuring proposition will make it more dependent on the market. One of its important measures is the introduction of the position of “endowed professor”, a professor who is personally funded by a foundation. The salary for this professor, according to the plan, will be three times greater than an ordinary member of the faculty and candidates will essentially be chosen on the basis of their publications and international citations (in peer-reviewed Anglophone journals). This reform may create a motivation towards excellence, but it will destroy a spirit of collective work and the democratic environment of the university. Such a reform echoes the neoliberal politics of constructing post-communist cities: instead of developing an urban project as whole, we build an enormous and solitary skyscraper. Thus, the live tensions between bureaucratic barbarism and objectivist technocracy tend to be resolved in the direction of neoliberalism.

What reform for the (Russian) university?

From these examples, we can draw a general idea of the current situation of higher education in Russia. To conclude, I would like to go back to my first statement. It is too simple to seek to describe a global political and economic situation through a model such as “neoliberal reform” or “postfordism and immaterial work”. These trends exist globally but they are constantly confronting different forces and often produce contradictory effects. In Russia, the emergence of the service economy and numerous firms in the 1990s coincided with the destruction of industry, the impoverishment of most of the population and a general increase of anarchy and anomie in society. In the 2000s, growth in certain sectors of the economy (natural resources, commerce, construction) brought wealth to the state and allowed it to raise living standards. Nevertheless, this reconstruction was partial and unilateral. Neoliberal policies in the tax system and general management coexisted with monopoly, corporatism and corruption that seeped through all the economy as well as with conservatism in the social sectors (including social security, medicine and education).

In the educational sphere, neoliberal measures such as the strict formalization of management, the introduction of standardized admission examinations for universities, the investment in the technological base of education are supposed to accomplish a reform in the system, yet through reinforcing the power of the administration without looking into the content or framework of education, they actually reproduce the status quo. The service economy does not demand high quality education; its demand for social sciences and humanities actually contributes to stagger them and continues to isolate the Russian university from the rest of the world. The quality of the educational offer is unequal across universities, and even when professors are well prepared, this does not guarantee that the quality of the education they offer will be as high as it could be, due to a lack of motivation and inadequate means of evaluating knowledge transmission.

In such a context, the only solution for the state (considering for a moment that bureaucrats are well-intentioned) would be to create new international institutions and to invite professional scholars and “organic” intellectuals (critical individuals who are embedded in practice) of an international reputation (or at least national) who are able to raise questions of general interest to society and to rethink certain types of social and material practices. We would have to give them funding and the freedom to manage these “teams” that could welcome and fund scholars from abroad, edit bilingual journals, etc.

Even if the opening of universities to the logics of the market may be harmful to the production of knowledge, some opening towards society is necessary. The reproduction of ivory towers is a mistake. The integration of universities with other social institutions can only take place through a temporary exchange of officials between universities (professors should be sent to industries, firms, etc.) and these institutions (where “organic” intellectuals should be forced to spend at least one semester in a university to systematize their thinking and exchange ideas with intellectual professionals). The media should of course be part of this system. Furthermore, large industries and corporations should develop small autonomous “universities”—as several firms in the West have done, although they are often too focused on applied research to consider public discussion.

Thus, this is a call for the abandonment of isolating narcissism and of a commercial approach to education. Anarchic “democratism” or the auto-education of students (echoing the “spirit of 1968”) is no longer an option, even if a certain democratization of the mode of operation of universities is absolutely necessary. The main task of the reform is to fight anomie and to rebuild the spirit of free thought and of collective work. This is only possible if we combine autonomy with the public opening of universities.

If education in Russia continues to be subordinate to the logics of bureaucracy and commerce, it will continue to deteriorate and lead to a deepening of the current solidarity crisis, the loss of creative spirit and the widespread of repressive violence as the only means to “hold” society together. It goes without saying that Russia is a global socio-political laboratory where current trends and dangers are more visible than elsewhere, giving every scholar the time and place to start to think globally.

We are located in the semi-periphery with no direct access to global power, with a certain distance from it. We can thus develop, from this position, close knowledge of the frontiers of “globalization” that draw multiple divisions between the North and the South as well as within them. A universal point of view emerges between the masters of the world and its frontiers and learning to see globally from this perspective could become the basis for teaching in our universities.

Translation from French by Ana Villarreal

[2] This, we know, is Heidegger’s argument in his “Nazi” discourse of 1933 (Martin Heidegger, L’auto-affirmation de l’Université allemande, Paris : TER, 1982). Heidegger is right with regards to the autonomy and power of questioning, but he ignores the dialectic between theory and practice: the theoretical and contemplative position of the university limits the power of thought. Through enclosing herself, it becomes “ideological” in Marx and Engel’s original sense. Thought can only be a laboratory, training for practice.

[3] http://www.newschoolinexile.com/

[4] For a good analysis of education in Russia (a little outdated but still valid) see: Anna Smolentseva, « Challenges to the Russian Academic Profession», in Higher Education, # 45, 2003 : pp. 391-424.

[5] Alexei Penzin uses the “postcolonial” framework to write the following: “when we invite Russian scholars to colloquia in Europe or the United States, we often ask them to tell us their local histories as we are interested in anything that is uncommon or abnormal. Postcolonial theorists describe this position as “subaltern”, i.e. a subordinate and objectified position where individuals have a very limited repertoire of private enunciations on universalism.” A. Penzin, « Zateriannyi mir, ili o dekolonizatsii rossiiskikh obstchestvennykh nauk », Ab Imperio, #3, 2008, pp. 341-348.

[6] Mikhail Sokolov, “Reformiruem li sozfak MGU? Instituzionalnye bariery na puti studencheskoy revoliuzii,” http://www.polit.ru/analytics/2007/05/25/socfak.html , visited 14.12.08

[7] For a similar argument, see a recent conference by Mikhail Sokolov, Akademicheskie diszipliny kak politicheskie systemy: predislovie k sravnitelnomu analizu”, Malye Bannye Chteniya, Saint-Petersbourg, 31.10.2008.

[8] For further reference on this point see www.streetuniver.narod.ru.

Today’s situation in Hungarian higher education displays the problems of transition from a model considered to be outdated by the European Union to a new structure. Just like the great political-economic transformation marked by the date of 1989 this transition is also ridden with political conflicts and diverging interests. In what follows an attempt will be made to outline the pre-1989 situation and the main reform concepts – along with an explanation of what has failed and why.

The root of many of the current problems lies in the pre-1989 structure of academic life in Hungary, which was modeled upon the Soviet concept of separating research from higher education. Thus, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was by no means a mere honorary institution but it was endowed with both symbolic and real capital to control Hungarian academic research. It maintained – and still maintains – several research institutes, which were considered to be more prestigious academically than teaching in higher education. Top academics could, of course, lecture at universities but the locus of real scholarly prestige was the Academy and not the universities.

After 1989 the Hungarian academic system faced two major challenges. The first one was a dramatic increase in the number of students. In 1990 Hungarian institutions of higher education had around 100,000 students; this reached 400,000 in 2003/2004, and after a peak in 2005/2006 of 424,000 it started to fall again, showing that the system had reached its internal limits.

The second problem, which concerned both the universities and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, was the lack of resources to modernize the old infrastructure, reorganize  education –adapted to the needs of the increased number of students – and develop new teaching materials and courses designed for students with varying knowledge, skills and abilities. This would have replaced the older elitist system, where admission depended on a very strict selection process.

Nonetheless, the rank of university increased in prestige because institutions of higher education received state support for every student enrolled, and the amount paid for a university student was higher than for a college student. No wonder that universities started to mushroom. Before the Second World War there were 6 universities in Hungary; between 1945 and 1990 27 new institutions of higher education were founded, whereas after 1989 37 new institutions received accreditation. This seemingly contradicts the earlier claim about a lack of resources. We have to qualify the claim: next to insufficient resources, the inadequate division of the existing resources also poses a big problem to the present Hungarian academic system.

In 1999 Hungary – together with 30 other countries – signed the Bologna Treaty on the introduction of the two-level university training system (BA and MA). In the old system an undergraduate degree course lasted for 5 years, and one could obtain a degree only after fulfilling all the obligations required during this time. The new system elicited huge resistance in academic circles, and there was also a massive social mobilization against the reform of the higher education. Why? Apart from the fierce political struggle, which markedly characterized the last years in Hungary, the planned reform indeed had many elements, which not only violated many interests but also cast doubt on the benefits to Hungarian academic life.

Firstly, the new system decreased per capita state support for university students. In order to compensate the universities, tuition fees were introduced. (Students received a waiver based on their achievement and social situation). Nonetheless, this step met with the massive resistance of university students, and severely worsened the political climate for the then-ruling socialist-liberal government.

Secondly, the attempt to modernize universities and appoint a managing body to control finances (consisting of delegates of the Ministry of Education and delegates of the universities) met with strong resistance from universities – partly because of fears that the managing body would be used to reduce the number of academic and official staff currently employed in higher education. This fear was reinforced by the government’s proposal to abolish university teachers’ status as public employees (which guarantees protection from dismissal).

Thirdly, the government made it clear that they plan to transfer research to the universities, which would have meant the severe reduction of the (remaining) cultural capital of the Academy. There were plans to sell the valuable estates of the Academy – which, of course, elicited general outrage among academicians. It also left unclear what would happen to the people currently employed in the research institutions of the Academy (many of which were planned to be sold). Given the fact that there were rumors about massive lay-offs at Eötvös Loránd University, the most famous and renowned university in Hungary at the time of the reform, it is highly unlikely that the dismissed academic researchers would have – or could have – found new employment at the universities.

This helps us understand the apparent paradox: while the Hungarian academic system is in serious need of urgent reform, the planned reform that was put forward by the socialist-liberal coalition failed altogether. Since the Bologna-system was closely linked to the eventual nightmare that many anticipated  – the selling of the academic institutions, the dismissal of researchers and university teachers and the destruction of what was left of the Hungarian Academy – one can understand why many teachers, who work in higher education, showed little enthusiasm for this program. The government’s plan would have received more support if – instead of direct confrontation with all important actors: the academicians, who were regarded as senile old people, desperately clinging to their privileges; the teachers, who were threatened with the loss of their jobs; and the students, who were asked to pay – they had tried to explain the necessity for change and, even more importantly, had made concessions to at least some of the social actors. (Note, the tuition fee that was suggested by the government amounted to a monthly average wage for a year).

The story – so far – lacks a happy ending. The socialist-liberal coalition suffered a severe defeat in the election of 2010. Nonetheless, the problems continue to persist: the system of higher education has exhausted its internal reserves, the funding that the state can give to the universities is insufficient, and the opposition – in its campaign – gave the firm promise not to introduce tuition fees.

The old question returns: how can one modernize Hungarian higher education when many departments struggle with basic financial difficulties? (There is no paper, or if a computer or a copying machine breaks down there is no money to repair it, and so on.) One path towards a solution might be to create a well-endowed category of research universities. The idea would be to give differentiated state support to the 70 institutions of higher education: those who obtain the proud title of “research university” would be entitled for more support. It, however, has to be noted that even within this proposal there is the hidden intention to reduce the role of the Academy – since research universities are distinguished by the fact that they conduct internationally recognized research

In any event the process will be painful. To make things worse, the present academic system still bears the characteristic traits of “actually existing socialism”: they are saving on the infrastructure but they are not saving on human resources. If an external managing body takes over universities, massive lay-offs can be expected. Should things come to that point, it would be highly undesirable were the past to repeat itself and political interests come to determine the (re)distribution of academic positions in Hungary.

Iranian social science is experiencing a new wave of ideological assault following the demonstrations against the result of the June 2009 presidential election, which turned into a widespread and continuing movement for freedom. Social Science universities have been accused of being Westoxicated, that is, provoking skepticism and brainwashing students with social and political theories formulated in western academies.  In one of the show trials, an important reformist confessed that he had been perverted by these theories and his theoretical mistakes had misguided his party’s agenda for change.[1] Still, it is doubtful that there is much truth in the charge that the social sciences had a serious impact on the movement for restructuring the political scene. As I will argue, the university is, indeed, involved in the current political transformation, but, given the ideological harassment it has faced since the 1980s Cultural Revolution[2], social science and its scientific community are at the margin of this movement.

Different fractions of Islamic Republic have adopted, more or less, developmental approach toward the production of knowledge,[3] encouraging the expansion of technical and scientific universities, research centers as well as overt and covert scientific exchange with the outside world.[4] At the same time social science academy has been under considerable pressure to Islamicize educational materials, to purge “unacceptable” professors and to request the stamp of approval; from religious authorities for its very existence. The result has been a weak academy, which the government rarely consulted to do research or make policy recommendations, at least until the late nineties. The irony is that the total number of university students as well as the number of social science students increased dramatically after the revolution. Indeed, while the population of the country has doubled in thirty years, the population of university students has increased 17-fold (from 160 thousand in 1978 to 2.8 million in 2007) and the number of humanities and social science students has increased 25-fold (from 52 thousand to 1.3 million).

The huge expansion of universities over the last three decades was not only the result of the developmentalist approach adopted by new Islamic technocrats, but was also due to the political meaning given to the expansion of higher education – to achieve social justice through a more balanced geographic distribution of cultural capital — in the period of reconstruction after the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88). Social science faculties played an important role in such distributive educational justice, as they need less logistical support or expensive technologies to be established in small cities and even in remote areas. The expansion of higher education has provided the main opportunity for social mobility for the urban population, especially with the retreat of the pro-poor politics of the eighties. Universities produced the middle class labor force and stimulated middle class aspirations for social and individual freedom by providing an arena for encountering different life styles, beliefs and political attitudes.[5] 

Social science universities experienced a limited liberalization as the consequence of the decentralized structure of the expanding academy as Islamic reformers took power in 1997-2003. But these universities remained at the margin of the networks that produced critical social knowledge through formal and informal gatherings around small political groups, different journals and periodicals, research groups and NGOs, online magazines. This rudimentary public sphere was the basis of circles of intellectuals and scholars who became active in social movements. Actually the purging of social scientists who were deemed non-Islamic during the Cultural Revolution was less important than the ideological inquisition which became part of everyday life in the academy. Since the mid-nineties universities witnessed signs of cultural and political liberalization for a decade, but, still, they were never free from ideological and political pressures. As most of the social science graduates, except for economists, couldn’t find jobs in related fields, their participation in building the community of scholars has been limited, while, at the same time, scientific associations have faced difficulties in supporting the intellectual and institutional independence of their members.

In the final analysis, social movements and informal networks outside the university have been the crucible of important developments in social science. We may even say that civil society and its movements have promoted social science more effectively than the academy itself.  We can only hope that in the future there will be a more balanced relation between society and the academy..

[2] Farastkhah, Maghsood, “The difficult situation of having universities.” Interview with Etemaad newspaper (2009) Accessible through http://www.etemaad.ir/Released/88-07-04/175.htm

[3] Khosrokhavar, Farhad, Shapour Etemad and Masoud Mehrabi. “Report on Science in Post-Revolutionary Iran—Part I: Emergence of a Scientific Community?” Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies (Summer 2004), 13(2), 209–224

 [4] Lotfalian Mazyar, “The Iranian Scientific Community and its Diaspora after the Islamic Revolution” Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 1 (2009). pp. 229–250,

 [5] Khatam, Azam 2010, “On Higher education, growth of middle class and civil society in Iran” (Roshde tabagheh motevast va jamee madni va amozeshe ali). Interview with the ISA e-bulletin. Accessible through  http://www.isa.org.ir/node/2341

Cairo University and the American University in Cairo are quite opposites in many respects, but the national environment surrounding them casts its shadows over both, making them share certain features in common. One is a national Egyptian public university, initially established through a voluntary non-governmental effort as part of a grand enterprise of national renaissance. The other is an American institution established decades later, partly to diffuse American values in the Middle East.

At present, Cairo University is a much larger organization, claiming three other campuses, two of which are in Egypt and the third one in Sudan, and sports no less than twenty faculties and five graduate institutes and over 187000 students, whereas the American University has no more than five schools and seven research centers and a student body of 5550, or 2.9% of the student body at Cairo University. While the faculty of Cairo University numbers 6822 university teachers, and 3967 teaching assistants the AUC claims only 384 full time teachers and 426 part timers, university assistants excluded. Cairo University offers education in a large number of fields, from Arabic language to medicine, agriculture and nuclear physics, while the American University in Cairo is largely a liberal arts institution, limiting its education mostly to social science, humanities, and business administration with only a small number of students specializing in science or engineering.

The two universities encourage their respective faculties to engage in research through their research centers. AUC has nine research centers, but only three of them are known to carry out serious research projects. Cairo University claims more than 150 research centers– fourteen are university wide entities while 134 centers are affiliated to specific faculties. Apart from the few university-wide research centers, shortage of administrative and financial resources limits the capacity of faculty-based research centers to carry out serious research projects. At present, the two universities are working on ambitious future projects. This includes a Ph.D. program in science and engineering at the AUC, and adding a large new campus in the satellite October City in the case of Cairo University.

Despite these differences, Egyptian society and political system impact the AUC in important respects. Those who are familiar with it find it less American and more Egyptian in character. This could be seen in the constraints under which the two institutions labor. But to understand such impact of the environment, it is important first to compare the administrative structure of the two universities, and examine how they are governed.

Two Models of Administration

Cairo University, since its establishment as a private university in 1908, and even after its transformation into a public university in 1925, has been modeled on French universities, being divided into separate faculties, initially four in number expanding to twenty three later. The American University in Cairo, on the other hand adopted, naturally, the model of US universities being divided until recently into departments each composed of several units. However, the departments were integrated in five schools few years ago, with a logic not always easy to discern. The schools of Humanities and Social Science, Sciences and Engineering, and English and Arabic Programs brought together disciplines that are close to each other but  a fourth school installed Communications and Mass Media under the same roof with departments of Economics, Accounting and Business Administration!! The newly-established Global Affairs and Public Policy School could not separate more than three departments from the older schools, namely Mass Communication, Public Administration and Business, despite ambitions of its founding dean to persuade other departments, particularly Political Science and Economics to join.

The highest authority in each university is its governing council , called at the American University the Board of Trustees, and at CU simply the University Council. There is an important difference between these two bodies. The Board of Trustees of the AUC is composed largely of non-academics, usually thirty five members most of them are US citizens including a good number of business people and former officials of the US government, whereas the University Council at CU is composed almost exclusively of academics, deans of faculties, the President of the University and his three vice- presidents and four other members, chosen from public figures with an educational background. These latter are usually former university professors who had joined the cabinet or had assumed other senior posts in the government.

Another difference between the two relates to the degree of autonomy each has in running its own affairs. The Board of Trustees of the AUC is subject to no external authority whereas Cairo University, being a public university, is a member of the Supreme Council of Universities headed by the Minister of Higher Education. The Council is composed of all presidents of public universities, five members with expertise on questions of higher education and public affairs in addition to the Secretary General of the Supreme Council Whatever the Supreme Council of Universities decides becomes binding to all public universities. Meetings of the Council are chaired by the Minister of Higher Education or the most senior university president in his absence. The most important function of the Council, according to the Law on Organization of Universities is to draw up the general policy on higher education and scientific research and to direct it in a way that corresponds to the country’s needs, and facilitate accomplishment of the national, social, educational and scientific objectives. Another function is to coordinate systems of study, examination and scientific degrees in universities. A third function is to formulate rules and determine numbers of new students to be admitted to each university. This latter function often gives rise to heated debate between the Minister of Higher Education and Presidents of universities. The Minister, careful not to antagonize public opinion, would like universities to admit a larger number of students.  University presidents, on the other hand, are concerned that quality of education may suffer when the number of students far exceeds the capacity of their universities in terms of size and number of classrooms, professors and laboratories. Views of the Minister usually prevail in meetings of the Supreme Council of Universities.

At the top of each university there is a President, assisted by a number of Vice-Presidents. The number of those Vice-Presidents is no less than three for Cairo University. Their areas of competence vary. Those of Cairo University are in charge of student affairs, graduate studies and research, and community and environment affairs. At the American University while one of the Vice-Presidents is in charge of student affairs, the three others have functions different from those of Cairo University, one is the provost, another is in charge of development and a third one looks after finance and administration. Being a foreign university in Egypt, only one of the four Vice-Presidents is Egyptian, who is in charge of student affairs. Within the senior administration of the university another Egyptian acts as a Counselor. The top leadership of Cairo University is all Egyptian at present, although there was a time in its early years when its top leadership had a number of foreign professors.

In all large institutions, a middle level management is required, and this is constituted in the two universities by Heads of Departments and Deans of Faculties.  At Cairo University, each dean is assisted by three Vice-Deans, those in charge of student affairs, graduate studies and research, and environment and community affairs. The AUC, being a smaller institution, its statutes do not provide for any posts of Vice-Deans. As the two universities are divided into faculties, and each faculty in turn is divided into departments, Deans are assisted in the running of the faculties by Heads of Departments.

The two universities share one feature in the internal management of department and faculties. These should be self-managed units. Their affairs are decided by their members. Departmental meetings run the major business of the department, leaving the Head of the Department with the responsibility for taking care of daily management. The size again dictates differences in the composition of departmental councils. At Cairo University, all full and associate professors are members of their departmental councils. Assistant professors are represented by no more than five of them, chosen on a rotation basis every academic year. Departmental meetings of AUC are open to all full-time faculty members. Faculty Councils are more limited in membership in both universities. Their meetings are attended by Heads of Departments and at Cairo University who are joined by a select number of professors chosen on a rotation basis including one associate professor in addition to the Dean and the Vice-Deans.

The two universities do not limit their mission to education but consider research to be an important part of their activities. However, while the AUC has seven research centers, the most active being one for desert research and a second for social research, Cairo University claims a large number of research centers covering diverse fields ranging from cancer and laser research to development and future studies. Ten research centers are subordinated directly to the president of CU while 131 are faculty research centers. Faculties of medicine, agriculture and engineering claim the largest number of these centers. Among social science and humanities faculties, the Faculty of Economics and Political Science has the largest number of research centers.

Research centers at the two universities enjoy a large degree of autonomy. Each center is headed by a director, who is its chief executive officer. The policy-making body is the board of administration of the Center made up of academics and non-academics with a relevant background chosen usually from among senior officials of the government, businesspeople and public figures.

Each university has devised specific mechanisms for the airing of grievances of its faculty and offering them a chance to express their views on how the university should be run. In the case of Cairo University, all faculty are members of a university professors club, run by an elected board. The club undertakes a host of activities of a trade union character. At the American University, there is no such arrangement but monthly meetings of the University Senate allow its faculty to make their views known to the administration. Elections of Cairo University Professors Club used to be free and open until the Ministry of Solidarity, in charge of  the legality of activities of all NGO’s in the country claimed that the council elections were invalid and called for new elections in which all members of the dissolved council were barred from running. The government did not like the dissolved council because it was dominated by professors belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, an officially banned organization.

Finally, students at the two universities have their own organizations and elected representatives. A liberal presidential decree 1976 was amended in 1979   in a  way that changed the composition of the student body in Egyptian public universities, making  a university professor  a “patron” for each committee in the student union, and giving the majority in the leading organs of student bodies, at both faculty and university levels, to university professors and other university officials in their capacity as supervisors of student activities . American University students have no faculty members sitting in meetings of their elected council. They have however to seek guidance from an  adviser, who is  the Dean of Students.

Cairo University, however, has a unique institution which has no equivalent at the AUC. In terms of the University bylaw, each department holds a scientific conference every year to examine its scientific plan and to suggest possible amendments in the curricula. This annual scientific conference is open to all the faculty of the department including assistant professors, teaching assistants as well as representatives of students.

The Question of Governance[1]

It might be difficult, or even unnecessary to examine all aspects of the internal governance in the two institutions, but an analysis of a number of the most telling issues would suffice to highlight the distinctive features of each. The four issues are participation in governance, appointment of academic staff particularly Heads of Departments, Deans of Faculties and Presidents of Universities, decision-making about the curriculum, and academic freedom.

Universities resemble armies and bureaucracies in one respect, all are hierarchical institutions with rights and duties being dependent on the rank one holds in the institution. Thus, such rights and duties at each university depend very much on the rank one holds, whether one is an ordinary member of a department, Departmental Head or Dean etc. While the American University opens departmental meetings to all departmental members, Cairo University admits only a select group of assistant professors.  The American University on the other hand excludes part time faculty from such meetings even though the latter constitute a large number of the teaching staff, almost  three quarters of the full time faculty. Even among the full time faculty, not all of them are tenured. Crucial decisions in departmental meetings are taken in effect by the tenured faculty, even in the face of opposition from untenured faculty. Top officials at the American University are mostly Americans. Thus, the hierarchy of privilege at the University goes down from tenured foreign faculty at the top, followed by tenured Egyptians, non-tenured faculty members with part time faculty at the bottom. This hierarchy is felt in pay, fringe benefits and even entertainment expenses as well medical insurance offered by the university. No such discrimination is to be found at Cairo University which does not appoint foreign faculty nor part timers. It is only the rank and position which determine rights and duties therein.

The most important post in each of the two universities is that of its President, at least in terms of the daily management of its business. The contrast between the two is greatest when it comes to the method of selection of this official. At Cairo University he is appointed by the President of the Republic in Egypt. The Minister of Higher Education submits to the President of the Republic his candidate or candidates for the post. The President is not necessarily bound by the recommendation of the Minister. Other powerful personalities of the regime could also have their say. Many of them are former professors who could have occupied senior posts in university administration. They would be interested in choosing for the post of President of Egypt’s largest and oldest modern university a person who shares their views, or better still, who is one of their “protégés.” In this way they enhance their share of the distribution of power in an authoritarian regime. It does not seem that any university organ is ever consulted about this choice, not the Cairo University Council, nor the Supreme Council of Universities.

At the American University, on the other hand, when the post of its President becomes vacant for one reason or another, the vacant post is announced in newspapers. A search committee including some university professors and members of the Board of Trustees would examine documents presented by interested candidates in order to produce a short list. Those who are short listed would be invited to visit the university, meet faculty members as well as its administration. Views of the faculty would be communicated to the Board of Trustees who finally takes the decision.

Those who are chosen to be Presidents of Cairo University were all university professors. The current practice is to choose one of the university Vice-Presidents to be the future President. It is difficult to know the criteria for choosing a President at an Egyptian university. Bureaucratic seniority is definitely a major criterion. For this reason, most Presidents were former Deans who were promoted to the rank of university Vice-President. Political loyalty is definitely an important consideration, but it is not enough since a large number of aspiring professors are willing to show their unreserved support for all government policies. Political connections with top leaders of the country can be a decisive factor. Professor Hossam Kamel, the President of Cairo University since 2008, was never a faculty Dean, but he is the brother of the Minister of Communications, who is very close to the Prime Minister. He is also a member of the Supreme Council of Policies within the ruling National Democratic Party, headed by Gamal Mubarak, the son of the country’s President.. He is Cairo University’s twenty fourth President since it became a public university in 1925.

At the American University, on the other hand, being a private university, the Board of Trustees has favored recently people with a good background in fund raising. Thus, the late John Gerhard who passed away in 2003 did serve in the Ford Foundation in Cairo and in Johannesburg . His successor David D. Arnold, who became the tenth President of AUC, has served as Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of the New York–based Institute of International Education and had  worked as well for the Ford Foundation serving at one time as its resident representative in India . One of his functions in his former post as director of the IIE was fund raising. The importance of fund raising has increased in recent years. Former Presidents of AUC included diplomats and distinguished Orientalists.

Below the level of President and his Vice-Presidents who are chosen by the President of the University, management of faculties is left to their deans.  In this respect the two universities have one feature in common, namely the appointment of the Deans by the President of each university. However, the division of the American University into faculties is a recent development, and the second layer of university leaders below the all-university level were Heads of Departments. The Law of the Organization of Universities of 1972 (LOU) gave Egyptian professors the right to elect the Dean of their Faculty. Names of the three front runners in such election would be sent to the President of the University who would usually appoint the candidate who got the highest number of votes. This continued to be the case in all faculties which had no less than ten full professors until 1994 when Dr. Hussein Kamel Baha’ El-Din, who was then Minister of Education and Higher Education, and a former professor at the Faculty of Medicine, decided that elections of Deans gave rise to much infighting among professors . He got one of his followers, a member of the People’s Assembly who happened to be a senior official at the Ministry of Education, to amend the Law 143 related to election of deans. Thus, University Presidents, since May 1994, have the privilege of appointing Deans of faculties. The Minister claimed that Deans are also appointed by Presidents of their universities in the UK and USA. He did not mention that they are elected by all the faculty and students in Italy, Spain and France. He failed also to recall that appointments of Presidents and Deans in the USA and UK are decided within the university community and involve much consultation with the faculty and are not a privilege of any government official.

Heads of Departments are elected by full time members of their departments at the American University in Cairo. They are appointed by the Dean at Cairo University. The impact of the change of the method of electing the Dean was soon felt at Cairo University. Under the old system, Deans used to be responsive to demands and suggestions of their faculty. Under the new system, their sole concern is to demonstrate loyalty to the University’s President, even if this runs counter to the legitimate wishes of their colleagues.

The top-down method of administration of university affairs is not always the rule at Cairo University and definitely not at AUC.  All matters related to the curriculum, organization of teaching and administration of examinations are left to departments and faculties. Each department is almost sovereign in terms of decisions concerning such matters. The appointment of new faculty is initiated by the department which decides on the candidate in its meetings, and then the matter is referred to faculty council for approval. This decision would be finally sent to the University Council through its appropriate committee for ratification. The question of curriculum reform has taken much of the time of Cairo University professors and of certain departments at the AUC in recent years. Conferences were held on this matter at Cairo University in 1999, and then later at the level of all national public universities in 2000.

As the organization of the two universities combines elements of internal democracy and administrative authority, relations between the university administration and collective organizations of professors and students are not free from conflict. Since 1984, the Club of Cairo University Professors has been very often at odds with the university administration. In that year the list for the Club submitted by the President of the university, with the president himself at the top, was defeated in the Club’s election in favor of a coalition of leftist and Nasserite professors. The election was a political one, since the late professor Hassan  Hamdy who was then the 15th President of the University was very close to the ruling National Democratic Party. Several of the professors who won had been among those professors who had been transferred from the university to administrative posts in the famous September 1981 Decrees of the late President Anwar Al-Sadat, and were later reinstated in their university jobs by President Mubarak[2]. Relations between the university administration and the Club became hostile, with the government siding with the university administration. State security agents used to watch carefully activities of the Club, considered by them to be a stronghold of opposition.

Two years later, elections of the Club were won by Islamist professors, and relations between the two sides deteriorated even further, with the university administration becoming reluctant to support any initiative taken by the Club. Matters came to a head in late 2009 when the Ministry of Solidarity in charge of monitoring affairs of NGOs, the Club being legally one of these NGO’s, ruled, on doubtful grounds, that elections to the Club’s Council were invalid. Against the opposition of the Club’s Council as well as many professors who do not share the Islamist views of the Club’s Council, the Ministry decided to call new elections in late December 2009. A few days before the elections, all members of the outgoing Council were disqualified from running. A rival so–called Independents List, but dominated by members of the ruling NDP, had no difficulty in winning unopposed. In this way, the Club came under the control of government supporters, for the first time since the historic election of 1984.

The two-and-a-half decades of free elections at the Cairo University Professors’ Club contrasted with the situation in other Egyptian public universities.. At the University of Assuit in Upper Egypt, the conflict ended with the President of the Club being arrested, tried and imprisoned for a few years as punishment for his political activism.[3] Relations between the university professors’ clubs and national university administrations continue to mirror tense relations between the government and the Islamist movement. The Muslim Brothers are politically skillful. They usually manage  to easily win elections in the country, whether national legislative elections or elections to professional syndicates and associations. They are in fact much more successful in elections to bodies whose members belong to the educated middle class. University professors in Egypt belong to this frustrated and rebellious class.

The government has been less tolerant of student activities in national universities. Professors may sympathize with the Muslim Brotherhood, careful to adopt peaceful methods in its activities. Students, particularly in Upper Egypt as well as Cairo University, tend to side more with the militant Islamist groups which had taken up arms against the government. The liberal 1976 University by-law allowed free elections for student unions, and offered such unions a large degree of autonomy in organizing extra-curricular activities. The student movement, which had been earlier dominated by Nasserite and Leftist students in the early 1970’s, fell gradually, with government complicity, under Islamist leadership. This development was initially welcomed by Sadat’s government which was not happy with the influence Leftists and Nasserites had among students. Following President Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in November 1977, student unions in many Egyptian universities, including Cairo University, denounced his new overture towards Israel. The liberal student by-law was amended in 1979 to bring student organizations firmly under their professors’ control. Elections for the student body were usually marred by many irregularities, including banning students known to be politically active from running for any post.

Professors and students at the American University in Cairo are much less politicized. The scene there is, therefore, very different from that at Cairo University. Clashes do erupt from time to time between AUC professors and their administration. Differences over professors’ pensions led to the early resignation of Professor Donald McDonald, the eighth President of the AUC. Students sometimes clashed with the university administration over the demand to organize demonstrations at the university, usually to protest Israeli and US policies in the region. The administration often shares students’ feelings, but it is concerned lest their protest lead to ugly confrontations with heavily armed Egyptian riot police, when it moves beyond the university gates.

In recent years, both professors and students have organized protest meetings and marches on university grounds. At AUC protesting students were rarely punished for these activities, but students in Egyptian universities, including at Cairo University could be arrested outside the university or even punished by university administrations. In late April 2010, Cairo University professors organized a protest demonstration in front of offices of the Minister of Higher Education in solidarity with persecuted students.

The Question of Academic Freedom

Academic freedoms, even when they are fully enjoyed, do not go without duties and responsibilities on the part of university professors and administration. The two universities have formal mechanisms to enforce rules of academic honesty and good conduct on members of their faculties Such mechanisms were rarely used in the two universities. In Cairo University, there have been very few cases when such mechanisms were used against professors who violated an informal code of conduct for academic staff, particularly when their “good reputation” was questioned. However, AUC finds itself in a stronger position as it can deny aspiring professors tenure or renewal of their contract.  At Cairo University, a university assistant who gets his Ph.D. is automatically appointed as an Assistant Professor. Such promotion guarantees a lifelong appointment. She or he could continue to teach until beyond retirement age. It is very rare in the two universities that professors are sanctioned for the quality of their teaching, although rules of promotion have been stiffened at Cairo University to ensure that promotion to ranks of Associate and Full Professors is dependent on engagement in research of an acceptable quality. The low pay of Egyptian university professors have led some to seek to improve their income in ways that might be seen to compromise the seriousness and honesty expected from an academic. Such professors, always a minority do their best to “market” their textbooks among the largest number possible of students, making such books the required and only reading for their students. This “option” is not available to the majority of professors who teach a small number of students in their areas of specialization, which might be Latin, Coptic Studies, or even Political Science or Mathematics. The university has no way of controlling this kind of conduct.

The two universities do pay the price of conflicting trends in Egyptian politics. Cairo University Professors Club was dissolved by Gamal Abdel-Nasser in March 1954 as it sided with President Naguib in the famous clash in February–March 1954 over the future of the July 1952 revolution.  The Club sided with what seemed to be a liberal stand by Naguib, who was then supported by political parties of the old regime. Several professors of Cairo University lost their jobs, particularly in the 1950’s, because of their political views. In his clash with several opposition groups in September 1981 President Sadat removed over 60 of those professors, including many from Cairo University. Under President Mubarak, several professors belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood have been arrested, put on trial, and condemned to years in prison. Cairo University administration did not, or could not, show much sympathy towards these persecuted professors. The American University was put under government administration from 1967 till 1974 because of the tense relations between Egypt and the US due to US open support for Israel.

In the 1990’s, the mounting influence of the Islamist trend in Egypt, and the government’s interpretation of Islam, definitely caused a certain restriction on academic freedom in the two universities. Any views or writings that could be seen incompatible with a conservative interpretation of Islam would cost those who advocate them dearly.

Nasr Hamed Abou Zeid , the Cairo University professor, had his promotion to Full Professor delayed because his promotion committee could not come to a favorable decision. Only when the composition of the committee was changed did he win his promotion. What is deplorable, however, is that the university that promoted him to Fill Professor, at the same time  withdrew all his books from the University Library. Conservative Islsamists launched a character assassination campaign against him, culminmating in the strange decision by a Court of First Instance , supported later by both the Court of Appeals and that of Cassation, to forcefully separate him from his wife, herself a university professor. These developments led him to leave the country for a voluntary exile in the Netherlands. All this had an intimidating effect on professors who share his views.

At the American University, Maxime Rhodinson’s book on Mohammed and Mohammed Shukri’s novel, dealing with the underworld of Morocco, entitled The Plain Bread were also dropped from Sociology and Literature courses because of protests from conservative parents supported by the President of the Republic and the Minister of Higher Education. Didier Moncier, the French instructor who had included Rhodinson’s book in a list of readings for his students could not get renewal of his part time contract with the American University and he had to leave the country. Dr.Samia Mehrez, the professor of literature who included Shukri’s novel in her course was summoned to the office of the President of AUC from the classroom where she was teaching to be told  that the book should be dropped from her course. Protestations of AUC faculty in the last case were completely in vain. Some books were also removed from the AUC Library because a “censor” did not approve their use in teaching. The books related to contemporary Egyptian politics.  The two universities did not demonstrate much courage in the face of such assaults on academic freedom. They simply adjusted to some of the negative features of the country’s politics, instead of defending their role as bastions of freedom of thought.

[2] President Sadat was angry with people who had opposed several of his domestic and foreign policies..On September 5, 1981 he ordered the transfer of  tens of professors and journalists from their jobs in universities and the press to administrative posts and arrested over 1500 persons of all political inclinations and religious beliefs. He was assassinated by a militant Islamist soldiers on October 6, 1981.

[3] Professor Mohammed Habib, former President of Assuit University Professors Club became The Vice-General Guide of Muslim Brothers for roughly 5 years-2005-2010.