Medieval universities still had real academic freedom: they had their own legislature, they elected their own officials, and they had their own seal, but they couldn’t exist completely independently either. Church and state exercised control over the work of universities. Although the students were free to study, the professors were able to teach without external scrutiny, and thus were also expected to be loyal. Academic freedom, scholarly work, and thinking were not entirely free either: Martin Luther was also expelled from the University of Wittenberg for his theological views, said Stefan Poloni, educational researcher at the Eötvös group and the Institute for Social Thinking’s online event The Independence of Higher Education.
Humboldt brought something new to the field of autonomy: he drew the boundaries of the metaphor of the state and the university and the university and society and the university and the church. He rejected outside influence in education, but agreed that the Prussian state should have a say in the appointment of teachers. The free idea of medieval universities was maintained by English universities. Although this XX. From the 16th century onwards, the state also provided support, but these resources can still be distributed by academic bodies.
The most successful American universities in the world today are characterized by competition for students and research money. There is no direct state intervention here either, but it is greatly influenced by the activities of universities and lecturers who demand targeted resources from the government and economic actors in addition to tuition fees. Professor Poloni said that the administration has a much stronger role in governance than these universities, and the role of the academic community is modest.
Countries want more and more to say
In the second half of the century, governments increasingly determined the direction of developments, the professional structure of training, the elements of the content of education. In continental Europe, state control and central planning have been further strengthened, but in the United States, participation at the federal level has also increased at the state level. States increasingly began to treat publicly funded universities as a public good, increasingly expecting performance against subsidies and, at the same time, a say in university affairs.
Institutional autonomy diminishes as finance and governance shift. Although the deans were still masters, their powers had been greatly narrowed. Instead of a Senate made up of scholars, representatives of the business/political world and their councils and committees play an increasingly important role in the management of institutions. Research funds are no longer distributed by reputable scientists, but rather come as a source of funding from the state or private actors.
Curiosity-based research has been replaced by bids, orders, and project financing.
Science growers increasingly expect benefit and results for short-term economic and social use. In the past, scientific results were freely available to everyone. Today, due to corporate demands, many university research results are considered trade secrets. We can also see these processes and aspects behind the university model changes that have taken place in Hungary in recent years.
Performance must be measured
However, Boulogne emphasized that a successful scientific life still could not function without freedom, a persistent critical attitude, impartiality, strict scientific standards and credibility. And this still requires a certain degree of independence, which must be protected and nurtured. The bigger question is how to strike a balance between independence and accountability. However, it is not possible for researchers to do what they want with state or corporate money. This requires a reliable performance measurement.
According to Polónyi, the question of the institutional reorganization of universities in Hungary is to what extent the autonomy and autonomy of lecturers and researchers can be created optimally coordinated with accountability and performance monitoring. According to Poloni, who often criticizes the field of the Hungarian university and does not consider the transformation of the network of the research institute of the Hungarian Academy to be real from the devil.
In Hungarian higher education, there is a simultaneous lack of resources that limits performance and, in the case of amnesty, traps the annuity and resource glut.
According to one version, no changes were needed, only more money was needed, but according to the other, the stagnant water was supposed to be stirred up by institutional transformation. In the end, the latter happened: in 2018, there were still 22 state universities, 5 of which remained under central control. Other state institutions were preserved and their management changed radically.
Instead of saving, changing the paradigm will drain more public resources
The question is what results this process has achieved so far and can achieve later, which we are still only in its infancy. Here is Polónyi’s diagnosis of the “state privatization” of universities:
- There is no question of saving taxpayers’ money because the shares of state-owned enterprises or state-owned land have been placed in enterprises, the proceeds of which have hitherto been paid into the central budget. In fact, they handed over state revenue only to enterprises.
- Savings are also not expected, because the state is now promising more resources to change university models than before. In exchange for performance, faculty salaries will rise, and so public spending will be higher. In some universities that are changing the model, Polónyi said, there is an increase of 60-120 percent compared to the amount received from the previous supervisor. Professors’ salaries will be increased by 50 to 60 percent and teaching assistant salaries by up to 80 percent.
- They promised to professionalize the economic management of universities, to bring it closer to the economic sphere, but according to Boulogne, this was just the wrong reason. According to the slide presented by the educational researcher, by studying the membership conditions in 45 out of 9 institutions, it appears that Apparently, nearly two-thirds of the 45 seats were filled with people close to the government. Six current or former Ministers of Orbán, Ministers of State, 4 persons belonging to the MNB of Matulci, 5 Mayors / Deputy Mayors / Members of Parliament Fidesz, and at least 3 businessmen associated with Orbán and his departments; 3 persons bound by the Mall, relatives of 1 der and Matolcsy, and ecclesiastical dignity sit on boards of trustees.
- The selection criteria for the Board of Trustees are also specified. The Prime Minister himself said that only people with patriotic feelings could join these bodies, and not advocates of globalization. In addition, these board members are irreplaceable. According to the professor, there are indications that the goal was the political occupation of the universities and not the introduction of a new approach to management.
- The researcher also considers the fact that more efficient and flexible forms of employment can be introduced rather than positioning a strict civil servant to be a sham. It does not require a foundation, an earlier example from Corvinus University shows that this kind of competence and the premise of better performance can also be created in a civil service relationship.
- According to Polónyi, the fact that the benefits of the purchase can be realized does not explain the fundamental transformation of 80 percent of higher education in the entire Hungarian state. This problem could have been resolved by amending the Public Finance Law.
transformation risks
According to Polónyi, a successful university needs money, excellent lecturers, motivated students and independence, but the current transformation involves many risks. Increasing efficiency can mean hiring fewer teachers and more staff than necessary, and even politically motivated employee exchanges, without spending on attracting, nurturing, and retaining talent.
Expensive or small, poorly funded programs may be excluded from training, not invest in developing new programs, and there are concerns about politically motivated “profile purges.” There is also a risk that the restructured universities will not have a stable workforce or be limited, as the majority will be employed on a temporary basis.
According to Polónyi, in the current model, the autonomy that supports the quality of operation of universities will be reduced, and will be replaced by “corporate autonomy”, which is based on the dictates of management, i.e. the board of trustees, and the risk increases political interference.
Uncertain guarantees
Zoltan Ronai, education attorney and associate professor, and associate professor at Eötvös Loránd University’s School of Education and Psychology, spoke of the university’s poor autonomy and the painfully lacking safeguards. For example, it is not clear from the outset in the Basic Law whether freedom of research and education applies to the institution, the scientist, or the community of scholars. The basic law alone is scientific research to evaluate A specific right for science practitioners. There is also talk of independence in the content and methods of research and teaching, but according to the Basic Law and the Law on Higher Education, this does not belong to the scientist, but to the institution of higher education. Explicitly, the freedom of the teacher is recognized in the Higher Education Act only in the work of teachers in accordance with the worldview and values.
Local regulations separate academic freedom from autonomy. Only the research part is fully guaranteed by academic freedom, and the educational part is regulated only by law, so it is a lower level legislation. Moreover, the Higher Education Act is not a fundamental law, it was not born by the two-thirds, so these rights can be curtailed at any time without raising any constitutional concerns.
It doesn’t really matter whether the freedom of research and education is directed at an institution or an individual. If you are an institution, you need to consider who represents the university. In public universities, this body is still a council made up of lecturers, researchers, and students. If the rector represents the university, it does not matter who chooses him. If the Senate had the right legitimacy, the situation might indeed be different for the constituent universities. Although in principle the senator elects the rector of the university there, only the board of trustees can take away the most important powers of the senate, rewrite the organizational and operational rules, elect a president over the rector, and thus the collective self-determination of the scientific community can not prevail.
They bear having to do what they have for him
Ronai noted, by the way, academic freedom from the outside can not be restricted only by the state. Where appropriate, educators and researchers may exercise restraint for purely funding reasons. For example, they are forced to choose a research topic for which they receive money and not one for which they nurture scientific curiosity. Research can also be influenced by internal university perspectives. For example, if the goal is to place an institution higher in the university rankings, it will require scholarly publications that can be “sold” in recognized international journals. However, only research of international interest is included in these, so researchers prefer to forgo research on local and national issues and, if necessary, critical research in the social sciences.
At the end of the lecture, István Polónyi answered a question: University employees are differently sensitive to autonomy. Some like to teach, some like to search, and some who don’t like to do anything, take it in lukewarm water. The issue of university autonomy is of paramount importance to those conducting research. According to Boulogne, some people have now taken on the need to do what they need to do for research.
The full performance can be viewed here.
