Recent trends in Estonian higher education: Emergence of the binary division from the point of view of staff development
✍ Scribed by Voldemar Tomusk
- Publisher
- Springer
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 634 KB
- Volume
- 34
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0026-4695
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
THE RELAXATION of the higher educational systems in countries formerly dominated by the Soviet Union has had many different and often contradictory consequences, especially in Estonia. Newly emerging market forces battle with governmental authority, which tries to control the system in ways similar to those used for decades. However, step-by-step, market forces are gaining power in the educational sector, and governmental bodies are being forced into a complex position. On the one hand, they cannot use the old means of controlling the system in a society where the basic principles of existence have largely changed. On the other hand, the application of several indirect control mechanisms over a short period of time exceeds the imaginative power and administrative capacities of the current authorities.
A new phenomenon in Estonian higher education, clearly reflecting the shortage of prospective thinking and illustrating the brutal battle over sharing the resources available, is the recently emerged vocational sector. During the last five to seven years, at least 15 new higher educational institutions have been established. Neither the legal status nor the mission of these establishments is yet clear. Because of their still uncertain academic reputation, and for lack of clearly stated aims, the traditional university-level institutions are unwilling to accept these new institutions as equal partners, and are becoming increasingly protective of the university sector.