Table Of ContentThe Open World and Closed Societies
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The Open World and Closed Societies
Essays on Higher Education
Policies “in Transition”
Voldemar Tomusk
THEOPENWORLDANDCLOSEDSOCIETIES
© Voldemar Tomusk 2004
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-6507-3
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ISBN 978-1-349-52868-4 ISBN 978-1-4039-7947-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781403979476
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tomusk,Voldemar,1962–
The open world and closed societies :essays on higher education policies
‘in transition’/ Voldemar Tomusk.
p.cm.(Issues in higher education)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Higher education and state—Europe,Eastern—Cross-cultural studies.
2.Educational change—Europe,Eastern—Cross-cultural studies.I.Title.
II.Issues in higher education (New York,N.Y.)
LC178.E852T66 2004
378.47—dc22 2003053654
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd.,Chennai,India.
First edition:April 2004
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the Memory of My Dad
We are all swallowed up in politics; there is no room for letters; and it is
feared that the next generation will not only inherit but improve the
polite ignorance of the present.
Simon Ockley, clerk in Holy orders and Sir Thomas Adams’s
Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge
1678–1720
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface xiii
Chapter 1. From Lenin to Digital Rapture:
The Everlasting Transition in East European
Higher Education and Beyond 1
Chapter 2. Higher Education Reform in Romania:
Knocking on Heaven’s Door 19
Chapter 3. Thirteen Years of Higher Education Reforms
in Estonia: Perfect Chaos 35
Chapter 4. Russian Higher Education After Communism:
The Candy Man’s Gone 53
Chapter 5. Market as Metaphor in East European Higher Education 75
Chapter 6. Reaching Beyond Geometry—
The Privateness of Private Universities 89
Chapter 7. Exploring the Limits of Entrepreneurial Response 105
Chapter 8. When East Meets West: Decontextualizing the
Quality of East European Higher Education 119
Chapter 9. Reproduction of the “State Nobility” in Eastern Europe:
Past Patterns and New Practices 131
Chapter 10. The Communication Community and the Scam of
the Knowledge Society 145
Chapter 11. Transnational Capitalist Class and World Bank
“Aid” for Higher Education 167
viii/ contents
Chapter 12. Toward a Model of Higher Education Reform in
Central and East Europe 183
Epilogue: The Unholy Trinity of Prince, Prophet, and Philosopher 199
Notes 203
Bibliography 223
Index 235
Acknowledgments
It is more than a decade since I wrote my first paper on higher education “in transition”
and presented it to an audience of around two people at the annual conference of the
Society for Research into Higher Education at the University of Surrey in England.
Now, it seems a less than naïve attempt to grasp a process that had not yet even
begun. I have been lucky enough being able to spend the intervening decade observ-
ing the reforms in East European higher education or, as has often been the case, the
nonreforms, as a young faculty member, a government official, and for the past seven
years as an open society activist. It has allowed me to experience changes within the
university and the Ministry of Education, as well as to see how these appear from the
perspective of a major international donor organization. The opportunity to be at
the heart of change has been a major learning experience for me, as it has been the
opportunity to work with a number of special people who have shaped our world as
it enters the new millennium.
I have to confess that there is one single reason why I accepted the position I was
offered back in 1995 at the Ministry of Culture and Education of the Republic of
Estonia when I returned from a year-long training program at the International
Institute of Educational Planning in Paris. It may sound utterly selfish, and it perhaps
is, but the only reason for my entering the Ministry was that I wanted to know what
was going on. It was a difficult job, and the salary accorded a young family with two
small children a living standard just below the poverty level, but I wanted to know
what was going on because for somebody looking in from the outside, the steps the
Ministry was taking appeared somewhat less than well thought through policy. It did
not take long to understand the internal mechanisms involved in that. Neither did
much time pass before I was offered an opportunity to apply my newly gained knowl-
edge on a wider international scale in the Open Society Institute in Budapest. It
seemed to be another good opportunity to learn and perhaps to do some worthwhile
things along the way. So in less than two months from the point at which I had been
told about the job, my family and I had settled in Budapest.
The results of my dozen years of practical studies of the East European higher
education transition are presented in this book. One might argue, and rightly so, that
not a great deal has been accomplished here. It is by no means a systematic study, its
theoretical background does not reach the necessary depths, and the empirical
evidence is less than complete. If there is anything with which I might excuse myself
then perhaps it is that there is no part of this book that was written for professional
research purposes. The essays collected here were written at nights and weekends in
