Central European University Higher Education Support Program Curriculum Resource Center Workshop hosted by Lviv National University

Transcription

1 Central European University Higher Education Support Program Curriculum Resource Center Workshop hosted by Lviv National University Quality Control and the Doctorate In Social Sciences and Humanities: Challenges of the Third Cycle in Central and Eastern Europe December 15-16, 2006 Lviv National University, Lviv, Ukraine AGENDA Friday, December 15 The Role of Institutions in Doctoral Studies: the University, the Academy of Sciences, the Attestation Agency, the Ministry 10:00-10:15 Welcome and introductions 10:15-11:30 Session 1: The Double Doctorate Discussions initiated by: Yevhen Golovakha, Deputy Director for Research, Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences, Kyiv, Ukraine Halyna Mylenka, Head, Department of Training and Attestation of Research and Pedagogical Cadres, Ministry of Education and Science, Kyiv, Ukraine 11:45-13:15 Session 2: The Process of Final Assessment Discussions initiated by: Vladimir Fours, Director, MA Program in Social Theory and Political Philosophy, European Humanities University, Vilnius Marine Chitashvili, Director, Center for Social Sciences, Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia 14:30-16:00 Session 3: The Candidat Minimum Discussions initiated by: Ostap Sereda, Research Fellow, Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Academy of Sciences, Lviv, Ukraine 16:15-17:45 Session 4: Inter-Institutional Quality Control, Peer Review Discussions initiated by: Lika Glonti, Deputy Director, International Institute for Educational Policy and Planning, Tbilisi, Georgia Natalia Chernysh, Head, Department of Sociology, Lviv National University, Lviv, Ukraine

2 Saturday, December 16 Quality Assurance Processes in the Doctorate 10:00-11:30 Session 1: Admission, Retention, Graduation Discussions initiated by: Nicolae Stratan, Director, Center for University and Post-Graduate Education and Professional Development, Academy of Sciences, Chisinau, Moldova 11:45-13:15 Session 2: Provision of Courses Discussions initiated by: Galina Bulat, Head, Department of Higher Education and Post-Graduate Studies, Ministry of Education and Youth, Chisinau, Moldova 14:30-16:00 Session 3: Supervision and Doctoral Research Discussions initiated by: Volodymyr Nikitin, Deputy Director, International Center for Policy Studies, Kyiv, Ukraine 16:15-17:45 Session 4: The Defense of the Dissertation Discussions initiated by: Petru Chetrus, Vice-Rector, Moldova State University, Chisinau, Moldova Participants 1. Galina Bulat, Head, Department of Higher Education and Post-Graduate Studies, Ministry of Education and Youth, Chisinau, Moldova 2. Natalia Chernysh, Head, Department of Sociology, Lviv National University, Lviv, Ukraine 3. Petru Chetrus, Vice-Rector, Moldova State University, Chisinau, Moldova 4. Marine Chitashvili, Director, Center for Social Sciences, Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia 5. Taras Dobko, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv, Ukraine 6. Kateryna Dysa, Senior Lecturer, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine 7. Vladimir Fours, Director, MA Program in Social Theory and Political Philosophy, European Humanities University, Minsk, Belarus 8. Lika Glonti, Deputy Director, International Institute for Educational Policy and Planning, Tbilisi, Georgia 9. Yevhen Golovakha, Deputy Director for Research, Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences, Kyiv, Ukraine 10. Sophia Howlett, Dean, Special and Extension Programs, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary 11. Halyna Mylenka, Head, Department of Training and Attestation of Research and Pedagogical Cadres, Ministry of Education and Science, Kyiv, Ukraine 12. Volodymyr Nikitin, Deputy Director, International Center for Policy Studies, Kyiv, Ukraine 13. Joanna Renc-Roe, Development Manager, Curriculum Resource Center, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary 2

3 14. Ostap Sereda, Research Fellow, Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Academy of Sciences, Lviv, Ukraine 15. Iryna Starovoyt, Program Manager, MA Program in Cultural Studies, Lviv National University, Lviv, Ukraine 16. Nicolae Stratan, Director, Center for University and Post-Graduate Education and Professional Development, Academy of Sciences, Chisinau, Moldova 17. Matyas Szabo, Director, Curriculum Resource Center, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary 18. Voldemar Tomusk, Deputy Director, OSI Higher Education Support Program, Budapest, Hungary 19. Ivan Vakarchuk, Rector, Lviv National University, Lviv, Ukraine 20. Maria Zubrytska, Vice-Rector, Lviv National University, Lviv, Ukraine 21. Serhiy Zaitsev, Regional Manager, OSI/HESP Academic Fellowship Program, Belarus- Russia-Ukraine-Moldova, Kyiv, Ukraine 3

4 Recommendations The group agrees to the following: 1. The double doctorate must be replaced by a single doctoral programme. 2. The new doctorate will be the PhD and will replace the old Candidate of Science degree 3. The development of new doctoral programmes needs to be associated with the issue of university autonomy. In other words, universities should be free to develop their own list of specialities for PhD, their own programmes, their own admissions requirements etc. The state s involvement should be limited to accreditation of these programmes. 4. Consequently, each university needs to set-up its own internal quality control mechanisms - that will work dynamically to support the overall goals of doctoral studies rather than as a bureaucratic set of hurdles for the student. 5. In addition to internal quality frameworks, independent body/ies need to be created with international experts to support external quality control. 6. VAK in its various forms is not fulfilling its original function as a quality control mechanism. Indeed, it is now often an obstacle to effective quality control, and as such should be disbanded. 7. Quality at the international level should be encouraged by involving overseas experts in the examination of doctorates, with substantial summaries written in an international language. Doctoral programmes should seek internationalisation and work towards involvement in cross-border research networks. 8. The Candidat Minimum should be abolished and replaced by a form of comprehensive following substantial coursework. 9. Reform of doctoral programmes should be seen in the wider and inter-related context of the reform of the first and second cycles of higher education. 10. New doctoral programmes need a coursework emphasis on research and project implementation (ie skills development) as well as the traditional emphasis on acquiring deeper knowledge in the discipline. Coursework must be broad to ensure an effective understanding of the discipline at an advanced level, but must also be flexible so that students can utilize courses to enhance their own research proposals. Coursework must emphasise the tools needed for a student to pursue their research and to be members of the academic community upon graduation. 4

5 Proceedings of the workshop Day 1: The Role of Institutions in Doctoral Studies: the University, the Academy of Sciences, the Attestation Agency, the Ministry Welcome by Ivan Vakarchuk, Rector, Lviv National University: It is my pleasure that today we are going to discuss the system of double doctorates that we have in Ukraine. This issue has been debated for a long time, and we hope that it will be solved soon. We are in the process of making reforms, and we are aware that one of the main obstacles we face is society s misunderstanding of these changes. Therefore we need to convince the general public of the necessity of making change. We are full of enthusiasm and we hope that doctoral reforms will enter our life, if not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow. I would like to thank you all for coming to Lviv and participating in the discussion. Session 1: The Double Doctorate Discussions initiated by: Yevhen Golovakha, Deputy Director for Research, Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences, Kyiv, Ukraine Halyna Mylenka, Head, Department of Training and Attestation of Research and Pedagogical Cadres, Ministry of Education and Science, Kyiv, Ukraine Yevhen Golovakha I would like to share with you my experience in working at the higher education attestation commission (VAK). My standpoint is somewhat radical but I am convinced that the double doctorate system is the main obstacle for a normal, natural development of science in Ukraine and in all the countries of the former USSR, and therefore I believe that this system should be destroyed as soon as possible. The reform will take many years. Resistance will be more powerful than during the collapse of the USSR. The Soviet Union does not exist anymore, but the system does exist and it is more bureaucratic than in the old times. It was possible to change authority, but now we deal with privileges and the allocation of and access to resources. I am convinced that we should encourage the social protest of those young scientists who would like to work in a modern world. We need to train better post-graduate students. At Kyiv State University only one in ten postgraduate students defends his or her dissertation. During the six years that I was working at VAK, I kept saying that the commission is a purely bureaucratic organization and more terrible than in Soviet times. But even my rather progressive colleagues failed to support me. VAK is simply sucking all juices from young scientists. All scoundrels overcome the formal barriers without obstacles and they become candidates of science and doctors within two or three years. What should we do? In my opinion we should create nongovernmental organizations consisting of active, modern scientists who would actively and aggressively require from authorities to radically reconsider, reshape the system. Halyna Mylenka I would like to say that the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science is all for the Lisbon convention, and we have already defined our concepts and our standpoint. We are approaching a 5

6 three-cycle system: bachelor s, master s and doctorate programs. Today, however, we still have two doctoral degrees: candidate of science and doctor. There are many discussions about the system of doctoral degrees, because opinions differ. The most progressive scientists and part of society are well aware that young people should not waste their most productive time in the creation of candidate theses instead of making real, practical research. But there are some others who think that receiving a second doctoral degree gives more benefits, more rights. The Ministry tries to integrate into the European higher education space and it promotes changes in the system of doctoral degrees. Some universities, including Lviv university, are included in an experimental program for training researchers, future scientists, not within the framework of the current standard system. But then again, some respected scholars believe that the current postgraduate system should not be transformed into the PhD, but rather the two should exist independently, in parallel. So now after reforming the bachelors and masters degrees we are in the process of developing doctoral programs using the above mentioned experimental scheme. Some such programs have already been developed at Lviv University, whilst others are being developed at Kyiv Mohyla Academy. The two universities should coordinate their efforts to define common criteria for doctoral training. It will not be the responsibility of VAK to outline the content and structure of these future doctoral or PhD degrees, but rather of an independent scientific body that includes the participation of international experts. By the time that the PhD degree enters into legal force, the young PhD graduates should be able to face the requirements set by VAK and would also receive the diploma of a state doctorate - so maintaining a parallel system for at least a while until the experimental phase is over. The possibility of reforming our doctoral education is available. We are going to have one-level doctoral degrees, but we need to identify procedures and mechanisms. We hope that the universities which participate in our experiment will succeed. Discussions: Volodymyr Nikitin We have four functions for our scientific degrees: the first one is developing research in the country; the second one is establishing or identifying the qualifying degree for scientists; the third function is the training of scientists; and the fourth is providing social status within the scientific community. This complex set of functions creates problems because everybody understands that a two-level system of doctorates is a social phenomenon and we need some social tools that resolve the problem. It is impossible to charge with the responsibility to make reforms those who are inside this domain. The reforms should come from outside. If we rely on persons with high positions within the scientific community to introduce changes, we will never solve our problem of double doctorates. In Ukraine the scientific degree is first of all a system of identifying qualification. It is the most expensive way of identifying qualification in any social community: we waste half of our lives to achieve it, and the higher education budget is also wasted. It is extremely important to increase money for research and to dramatically reduce expenditures for identifying qualification. It seems to me that the one-level system is economically and socially justified. We should develop the mechanism which would on the one hand contribute to the development of scientific research and on the other hand would make the process of identifying qualification a sound, clear and transparent process. This procedure should not be expensive. Ivan Vakarchuk It seems to me that VAK is a dragon and in order to decapitate it we should not look into its eyes, but rather we should find a shield. We should declare that as of today we only have one doctoral degree, and the new generation of scientists should be granted degrees according to the new system. 6

7 Lika Glonti In Georgia we do not use the term scientific degree, now we have academic degrees: bachelor, master and doctoral degree. Maybe we made our changes too rapidly but in the law of higher education we wrote that beginning from January 3 rd, 2007 all former degrees of candidate and doctors of sciences would become equivalents of the academic degree of PhD. We made everybody equal. We try to look at the system of doctorates not separately from other degrees. We should develop the qualification standards for bachelors, masters and doctors, we should reform the system as a whole. Vladimir Fours I have two brief remarks. The first one relates to earlier comments that reform should be carried out from outside the system. In Belarus the reform of the Academy of Sciences was led by the Head of the Presidential Administration, a gentleman who has nothing to do with science. Based on that experience, I believe that the system of certifying scientific degrees should be reformed by the forces within this system. My second comment is about the soviet-time phenomenon of the double doctorate. Perhaps the difference between the doctorate and the habilitation is reasonable. Habilitation is the procedure which enables a scholar to be granted with the degree of university professor. If we destroy the differences in status within a scientific community, the result to some extent depends on whether this community is healthy. The therapy of scientific degrees is somewhat artificial but under the conditions whereby we do not have too many healthy scientific communities, habilitation should not be abolished. Lika Glonti I wish to reiterate that if we describe properly all standards of scientific degrees, there will be no space left for habilitation. If the community is not healthy, we will not have high quality at whatever happens to be the last level of the degree system. Yevhen Golovakha The major problem is that the post-soviet system is a corrupt vicious circle. Incompetent people sitting in scientific councils help each other s protégés in receiving scientific degrees. We should also be aware of the big amounts of money paid for writing dissertations, and for the various degrees themselves. Volodymyr Nikitin There are formal criteria for granting scientific degrees known all over the world, but our attestation commissions refuse to implement them. As a council of experts, VAK may make exceptional decisions. If we use formal criteria for granting qualifications we will be able to overcome the vicious circle. Nicolae Stratan I believe that the issue of the double doctorate needs to be discussed in different manners, depending on whether the country in question has joined the Bologna process already, or not. The Bologna process envisages two postgraduate degrees: masters and doctors, therefore the second doctoral degree is automatically cancelled and there is nothing to discuss. In countries that did not join the Bologna process, those who have the doctor habilitate degree will resist introducing a onelevel system. Moldova joined the Bologna process and therefore we will have just a one-degree system. We still have discussions about the change, but there are many people who understand that only one degree, one-level system should be available. 7

8 Galina Bulat The Education Ministry of Moldova developed a new package of laws on higher education, but unfortunately we failed to convince the representatives of the Academy of Sciences to include in the law the PhD as a cycle of higher education. We still have a double-doctorate system. At the Ministry we have found a compromise to preserve for an indefinite period of time the degree of doctor habilitate. Maria Zubrytska My understanding is that eight universities in Ukraine, including Lviv University, have autonomy in creating their own curricula. We developed our documents, and we submitted them to the Cabinet of Ministers. We were able to agree on the content of our documents with most of the ministries, but the Ministry of Justice said our proposal is in contradiction with Ukraine s law on higher education. The law mentions that universities have autonomy, but in fact they may not sell their publications, because in such way they would be regarded as private, commercial and not state university. Although it is declared that universities have a certain degree of autonomy, seventy percent of decisions in curriculum matters are still made by the ministry and only thirty by the university. The ministry decides about the standards of education, as well as the subjects of education. We suggest to make the proportion fifty-fifty or, in a more radical version of the proposal - forty/sixty. Universities in Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lviv deliver just the same courses, as envisaged by the Ministry. I believe the Ministry should prescribe the procedures, but not the content of the curriculum. But as it was thirty-forty years ago, the state tries to control the product itself. This is an obstacle which prevents us from reaching new quality. Petru Chetrus The issues related to higher education in Moldova are also complicated and need reforms and reorganization. Similarly to what we heard from our Lviv colleagues, in Moldova we are developing proposals for the autonomy of universities. These suggestions and reforms should be developed by the experts: scientists, university employees. Unfortunately the parliament, the politicians often refuse to listen to the opinion of experts. The university sees the resolution of the problem of double doctorates not in making equal former doctorates with present candidates, but rather in not touching the degrees of the older generation while expanding requirements for today s doctoral dissertations. Vladimir Fours If we admit that the double doctorate is obsolete and we wish to adhere to the one-level system, the process should be considered together with reforming the bachelor and master s degrees. As was already mentioned, introducing the uniform doctorate will not resolve some of the major problems such as state control in higher education, the lack of academic liberties and corruption in the academic community. Perhaps it is not so important whether in some specific country there is a transition from double doctorate to one-level system; instead we should focus on how to increase the demands of the labor market for specialists with high level of qualifications. Marine Chitashvili In my opinion we do not need a double doctorate. The second doctoral degree was introduced in the former Soviet Union to be granted for those who discovered a new branch in science. I work in psychology, and I know only five branches in my subject, but I see that there are many doctors of psychology in my country. 8

9 The second doctorate was also considered as the end of one s academic career. The PhD degree, on the contrary, means that one is entitled to make independent research, and therefore produce new knowledge through investigation and studies. So with the PhD we train people who are interested in carrying out scientific work, and we guarantee that our trainees will have appropriate education for such work. Those countries which would like to keep the double doctorate, must be extremely wealthy if they can afford it. Yevhen Golovakha I also think that the double system is unnecessary, it simply doubles corruption. Formal criteria for doctoral dissertations should be replaced by scientific criteria defined by experts in the field. The task for our scientific communities is to introduce clear requirements and standards, and in such a case a twenty-five year old PhD graduate will be more qualified than fifty year olds who have the habilitation. Volodymyr Nikitin I suggest we return to the definition of qualification. In my view qualification is the result of training, of teaching to enter one s science and to receive money for that. We should distinguish between establishing qualifications in science and the right to lead scientific research. We should not mix these two things, but rather combine them. There was a proposal published in a Ukrainian journal according to which postgraduate students should be trained only by those scientists who have proved that they can work at a high level, who have publications, who have headed international scientific projects, who have a high citation level. This system will be extremely difficult to be introduced, as science is a specific trade. We should see the difference between trading and science. Marine Chitashvili In Georgia the law on higher education grants universities real autonomy: the state gives us only the students vouchers, everything else is up to universities. We have our own requirements for filling various positions: the university may decide, for example, that instead of looking at one s academic title (professor, doctor habilitate), it would require the person to have specific publications. University autonomy also triggers competition between universities. Two years ago we had 240 higher education institutions in Georgia, now we have 32. In two years I guarantee that out of 32 we will have only 12, and perhaps by 2010 we will have four or five higher education institutions in Georgia. Session 2: The Process of Final Assessment Discussions initiated by: Vladimir Fours, Director, MA Program in Social Theory and Political Philosophy, European Humanities University, Vilnius Marine Chitashvili, Director, Center for Social Sciences, Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia Sophie Howlett We started our discussions this morning thinking about the overall present structure of doctoral programs and the question of the double doctorate. But as was mentioned, just because we get rid of one doctorate does not mean that we have solved our problems. Now we can begin to discuss more specific issues. The first one that we have put on the table is the process of final assessment of the doctorate, all the different hurdles that people have to go through to pass the various quality control procedures. 9

10 Vladimir Fours I would like to begin with a brief introduction of the institution I work for, the European Humanities University, a Belarussian institution in exile, in Vilnius, Lithuania. In a difficult period of reorganization that began in last academic year, we have reformed our master and bachelor programs and our third level program the doctorate. Our doctoral programs have been registered by the Ministry of Education of Lithuania. Those students who are admitted receive financial support. They receive scientific supervision, they get access to our library, they attend courses in social research and also training in specific topics in their own disciplines. We have a rather strong community of doctoral students, the focus of their research is the social, cultural, and political dimensions of the transformation process in Central and Eastern Europe. The program has existed for two years, therefore we do not have yet defended dissertations. Four young professors, who are instructors at our university, are now candidates who will defend their PhD theses in Lithuania. They have joined the research department of Vilnius University, received a supervisor and under his or her guidance they write their dissertation according to Lithuanian requirements. They pass some additional exams required by Lithuanian regulations and then they defend their dissertation. It is a specific situation and this is why in every given case we are developing individual procedures, individual scenarios. We believe that the role of VAK in the final assessment is unnecessary. The final decision on granting a PhD degree should be made by the university, based on the judgment of a disciplinespecific defense commission, which in Lithuania consists of seven persons, some of them international scholars. Marine Chitashvili Together with my colleague, Lika Glonti, we have elaborated a general framework document on doctoral education in Georgia. The work was demanded by the Rectorate of Tbilisi State University, as they wished to set up the general regulations for PhD programs at that university. The document discusses several topics, such as admission, teaching and the final assessment of the dissertation. The major idea of this document was the quality control of PhD programs. After abolishing VAK in Georgia, there are now no uniform quality criteria in the social sciences and humanities either for the dissertation or for the PhD program. As for the final assessment, the scientific doctoral council is established at the level of the Faculty and is composed of associate professors and full professors. It was suggested that each council should include one external expert from abroad, and also another expert from outside of the university. The defense can either pass or fail, there will be no grading or any further differentiation of its quality. The honoraria for the international expert is paid by the university, not by the PhD student. The dissertation, or at least the extended summary of it (which often includes the whole introduction, methodology, etc) should be written in an international language. (in the social sciences we have already decided that this should be English). In case one cannot find an external supervisor for a doctoral dissertation, the PhD student is required to have one publication in an academic peer-reviewed journal in English. During the process of final assessment, we are requesting external experts to write their evaluations based on western standards, to formulate their pro and con arguments, that is to identify the dissertation s achievements and its weak points. The requirement for the dissertation is to generate new knowledge - it must show that something new in the field is found and explored in the dissertation. Before they start the process of final assessment, doctoral candidates have to pass the comprehensive exam at the end of their course-work, and also to pass an advanced training in 10

11 research methods. The final assessment will be performed by the so-called council of the professional board. Faculty members will be chosen to sit in this professional board based on the topic of the dissertation to be defended. It can easily happen that there would be only one professor from the student s university or department, others will be invited from other universities or departments. Sophie Howlett Have these regulations been adopted across all the universities in Georgia, or at least have they been discussed? Marine Chitashvili The old tradition that everything done at Tbilisi State University is copied by other universities as well is still maintained, so the other Georgian universities have decided to adopt the PhD document to their capacities. For example another Georgian state university decided that it will open doctorate programs only in two fields, arguing that they do not have the capacity to run doctoral programs in other areas. Yet another state university has already put forward its regulations for PhD degrees: they are requiring each applicant to have a clearly defined research proposal already at the stage of admission, then to have at least upper-intermediate level in English; in addition they have to attend and pass two research seminars. They do not have to pass, however, any comprehensive exam. We see the introduction of the comprehensive exam as absolutely necessary, otherwise future PhD graduates will not have the broader understanding of the discipline. Ostap Sereda I do not want to play devil s advocate, but some of the earlier speakers today have criticized the notorious VAK (Higher Attestation Committee), even demonized it to some extent. I have personal reasons to hate this institution because I had to pass through the nostrification of my doctoral degree received at CEU. However I do not believe that abolishing this VAK will solve all the problems. I think that as an institution, this centralized academic agency that secures academic standards throughout the whole country, can be seen as necessary, at least for some transitional period. Today somehow VAK plays the role of a kind of gendarme who secures that dissertations are not plagiarized. My argument is that VAK as an institution is not necessarily problematic, but rather its regulations are. In my opinion the most problematic issue is the activity of the specialized academy councils, which are responsible for the final defense. First of all they are too big, the number of experts sitting there should be reduced, otherwise it is not possible to have any real examination of the dissertation. They should also be more flexible in their composition: the format described by our colleagues from Tbilisi would work in Ukraine as well. Volodymyr Nikitin The requirements of VAK envisage the existence of an opponent at the defense of the dissertation. I would like to return to the history of universities in Europe. In the Middle Ages there was a practice and procedure of disputes which, unfortunately was not inherited by later universities. Medieval dispute was as follows: the opponent was selected as a person who could argue against the ideas expressed by the nominee, and those present at the debate simply assessed, evaluated the game. The opponent was not supposed to judge the ideas of the author of the dissertation, he or she was supposed to verify the arguments provided by the future doctor. Nowadays the process of defense does not envisage real opponents, the medieval principle of opponents is not observed. Marine Chitashvili I agree with you that in our case we do not follow the procedure of checking the nominee s ability to defend his or her standpoint. I would not say that the option you suggested is a bad one, but I 11

12 would still argue that opponents should not find only counter- arguments. In medieval universities it was necessary to be proficient in disputes. When I worked at London University I observed a defense in biology. First the nominee spoke for fifteen minutes, then the opponent was given the floor for forty-five minutes. She was invited from the University of San-Diego, as she was known to be a recognized professional in that field of biology. In her speech she analyzed all details of the dissertation and asked the doctoral candidate to answer some eleven questions related to the methodology, interpretation of data, etc. It seems to me that inviting an external expert as opponent, who would show what is correct and what is wrong with the nominee s arguments and findings was fine. The role of dispute here was to see whether the future PhD graduate is able to think, argue and speak logically. Nicolae Stratan I have a question to the Georgian representatives: which language will you use for the dissertation and the final assessment Georgian or English? I doubt that each doctoral candidate will be able to use both languages in all cases. We have to adopt some general standards. For example, if one has five translated articles published in international journals, the foreign experts would be able to read those English-language articles and evaluate them. But, for instance, if the expert only reads an English abstract of a Romanian dissertation, what will he understand? Marine Chitashvili In Georgia English is mandatory in BA education, and twenty credits are given for Englishlanguage courses. This means that each student studying at the faculty of social sciences has to know English after two years of education at Tbilisi state university, at least to the upperintermediate level. Those students who continue their studies in MA and PhD programs will be, therefore, competent in English. It is very expensive for the university to provide English language courses, but we are convinced that in the social sciences English is the international language, and if we want to improve the quality of our education we have to invest in the teaching of foreign languages. The second issue is that Georgia is a very small country, with a small labor market, where it is difficult to find a god job. That is why we are educating our students to speak English. One can observe that fewer and fewer people are staying at university to continue a purely academic career. Whether we admit it or not, at the PhD level we have an elitist approach. Yevhen Golovakha I agree that English is a must for training contemporary specialists, though in humanities there is a threat: students in humanities read standardized texts in English language which does not incorporate the national specificities of certain disciplines, such as linguistics or history. Works in humanities written in English by our students often sound rather banal. These works should be written in local languages, and then be translated by professional translators. We should train students in humanities for our society: philologists to understand the essence and functions of language, historians to understand the peculiarities of their own national history. We train universal scientists who know universal concepts and do not know anything about their own country. They should understand the psychology of people, the language of people and they should be the new generation of policy makers in our societies. Therefore we should be careful when we discuss writing dissertations in English. Vladimir Fours We should preserve the role of the state in granting scientific degrees. In Lithuania, for instance, the center for quality control in education gives only to a small number of universities the right to grant PhD programs, based on the scientific output of professors who work there. 12

13 Volodymyr Nikitin Two years ago in this very room we discussed the role of VAK. The executive head of the Ukrainian VAK said the only role of his commission is to control the number of scientists who have doctoral degrees. I firmly believe that the state should control such things. There should be a transparent process of rating universities and their diplomas or degrees, and the information on which university granted the degree should be available to everybody. Regarding the issue of English language, the problem mentioned earlier by Yevhen Golovakha is a real puzzle, as preserving diversity should be part of the ethics of international development. Indeed we should have international defenses and examinations, and for that all papers should be translated in English, perhaps by some new centers for translation. Moreover, PhD students should speak English in order to read literature in their field. But in humanities we should maintain some sort of linguistic specificity. Lika Glonti I would like to react to remark on the role of the state in granting degrees. I strongly disagree that the state should regulate this realm. Each university should be responsible for issuing its own diplomas for bachelor, master, and PhD students. State control should only be manifested within the framework of institutional accreditation. But I disagree that the state should be in a position to say, for instance, that Kyiv University has the right to issue degrees and Lviv University does not have such a right. As for the language, I agree with the earlier speaker that we should produce the work in two languages. It is a technical matter who should translate it, but it seems to me that the PhD candidate should make the translation of his or her own work; this would be an additional checkup of his or her qualifications. Matyas Szabo I wonder whether there is need for an institution such as VAK or a similar quality assurance agency in order to ensure doctoral degrees are not simply granted without the right quality. If we take the Georgian case, by abolishing VAK you rely on universities self-awareness of their limitations and on their maturity to judge which are those disciplines where they should be granting PhD degrees. Is there a risk that some universities would want to grant doctoral degrees in all of their subjects, because they believe in this way they can increase their own prestige? How can one be sure that the degrees granted by autonomous universities will be up to an appropriate standard? Should there be an institution that would define the conditions for a department or a university to grant doctoral degrees? Otherwise the system is prone to corruption. Marine Chitashvili Our state is not giving any money to universities for opening or maintaining PhD programs, therefore universities are not very keen to open doctoral programs. There are accreditation standards that you need to accomplish if you want to grant PhD degrees. If your PhD does not meet the accreditation standards, you risk loosing the accreditation. Nicolae Stratan I understand that VAK will cease to exist in Georgia after January 2007, and after that each university will have the right to decide whether the quality of a dissertation is adequate in order to grant a doctoral degree to its author. But I agree with Vladimir Fours, that the state should have a role in this process. The state pays the salaries of university employees, provides the budget for educating students, and knows the needs of the country, therefore it should be able to plan the number of degrees granted in each discipline. 13

14 Session 3: The Candidat Minimum Discussions initiated by: Ostap Sereda, Research Fellow, Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Academy of Sciences, Lviv, Ukraine Ostap Sereda Within the framework of transforming the structure and content of our doctoral education into PhD studies, I would like to share with you my experiences both as a PhD student and a candidate of science. It seems to me that the difference between the candidate minimum exam and the PhD comprehensive exam is a good illustration of the difference between the quality and the content of the two systems. While the candidate minimum is considered to be a formality, (and I do not know of a single example where somebody has failed it), the comprehensive PhD exam is a serious trial of proficiency for the future PhD. It is an extremely important threshold that needs to be passed in order to move from the status of student to the status of doctoral candidate. The candidate minimum is an exam in philosophy and foreign languages, and therefore has little to do with the subject of investigation of the doctoral student. The comprehensive exam is a considerable part of the defense though it is passed two, three, or four years before the defense of the dissertation. It depends on the higher education institution when students should pass an exam, and to what extent this exam is specialized. These exams are sometimes not connected with the preparation of the final dissertation. If we take into consideration the educational level of our university graduates, particularly in humanities and social sciences, doctoral coursework would enable our universities to form, to create future scientists in the full sense of the word. There are bureaucratic problems how to ensure such courses, but despite all the obstacles even now we are able to fill postgraduate courses with real content. I know that in Kharkiv, for example, there are specialized post-graduate courses offered jointly with the Academy of Sciences. It seems to me that in Ukraine the American PhD system of coursework would be more useful than the British one. Volodymyr Nikitin I fully agree with you. If we consider post-graduate education as training specialists, it is extremely important to study within the framework of courses. The Soviet candidat minimum which we inherited does not provide that function. So what does the candidat minimum prepare us for- for defending the dissertation or for further work at a higher level? As an employer, I meet those who graduated from postgraduate studies, and I see that they do not have the necessary skills, abilities and knowledge to manage research activities, to create programs for further research. If they had good instructors, they would know at least something about approaches to scientific research. As I see this deficiency in their analytical skills, it seems to me that training in research methods should be the main component of postgraduate courses. Lika Glonti At Tbilisi State University we have built in our doctoral programs a block of sixty credits of taught courses. These courses also include project management and communications, because we think that a doctor of philosophy is supposed to be able to communicate with colleagues and participants in research teams, and should be proficient in project writing. One of our courses is about presentation skills for those who wish to continue their academic career in higher educational institutions. They should be well aware of curriculum development issues and the need for professional skills. It is important to emphasize that we have abandoned classic lectures in such courses, we use intensive workshops. Doctoral students are mature people, lectures are not interesting for them. 14

15 Ostap Sereda The Candidate minimum should be made relevant for preparing the dissertation itself. The research project should be defended at some point during doctoral studies, but in our postgraduate programs we do not have this component. Only the supervisor and the postgraduate student himself or herself know the subject of research, the project is rarely discussed within a circle of other professors, other postgraduate students. Some postgraduate students confess that only when they have submitted their dissertation to the defense committee do they understood what their project should have been about. Natalia Chernysh One other deficiency of our doctoral programs at least in sociology - is that we not only neglect training in the writing of scientific research projects, but we do not make our students practice field-work either. We develop with them some questionnaires, but we do not have the funding to go to the next step of project implementation. In sociology it is extremely expensive to develop all tools for investigation and to carry out the field-work. Due to the lack of funding in research implementation, we frequently come across the problem that the first priority in doctoral programs is studying, and only the second one is research work. Some of the new doctoral programs, such as the one in Lviv, include a research element. Yevhen Golovakha In light of what has just been said about the priority of teaching over research, I believe that the candidate minimum is a harmful thing, and needs to be abolished. My personal experience is that master students come to doctoral programs with the idea that they should be involved in independent research work. After entering the program, however, they immediately get involved in a monotonous, routine teaching process, they attend lectures, listen to philosophers, study a language, and they develop the false belief that they should be taught what to do next. They often ask me what they should do, and I always tell them that my role is to assess and evaluate their own independent scientific work. Nicolae Stratan I would like to know who develops the program for the candidate s minimum, and what are the criteria for establishing its content and length? Halyna Mylenka I will describe how this process is occurring in Ukraine. A joint order was issued by VAK and the Ministry of Education for developing programs for candidate s exams. The order itself was necessary because of the uneven education that the candidates of science received. While requirements for these exams were developed by Ukraine s leading scientific institutions such as the National Academy of Sciences, Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Lviv and Kyiv National Universities, were undoubtedly of high level, some requirements developed by provincial universities have been rather poor. There was a necessity to create a uniform level of requirements. So the leading scientific schools joined forces, by organizing specialized councils responsible for their fields. The feedback from different institutions was gathered by VAK and analyzed. If VAK was not satisfied with these proposals, it came up with its own list of requirements for candidat exams, or charged one of the prominent institutions with creating model programs. These models could then be further modified and adopted to the needs of individual institutions. If the requirements of the model program become outdated, a university can submit a new proposal to VAK which then can be either approved, rejected or taken into consideration when new requirements are developed. 15

16 As for the requirements in non-speciality disciplines (foreign language, informatics and philosophy), we do have centrally approved programs, but after the universities received some degree of autonomy, they do not strictly obey them. For instance, the requirement on the number of hours for foreign language education is often loosened due to financial constraints of the institutions. And we accept such arrangements recognizing the right of the institutions and of feepaying students to decrease the cost of instruction. Philosophy is a real puzzle. Although many options have been developed by Kyiv University including philosophy requirements for natural sciences, humanities, non-philosophical and philosophical specialities, for some reason they are not operational (I would leave the question of the reasons for this aside for now). As for the courses on the basics of scientific methodology, scientific research, informatics, psychology etc while they are taught for the candidate students, they are not included into the list of compulsory candidat minimum exams. Again, it is up to individual universities to set up programs on those disciplines. Marine Chitashvili I would like to share my experience regarding candidate minimum. Two or three years ago in our department of psychology we had twenty talented postgraduate students who passed all their exams excellently but they did not know what to do next. I suggested that we should organize workshops for our postgraduate students to discuss their research papers and maybe then they would be able to properly understand what they are doing. It was a catastrophe. After two such meetings we found out that our students could not formulate their own main research questions; they processed their data, but could not make conclusions. We then trained them on how to formulate research topics, and asked them to bring all their research topics to these seminars to be discussed. We met twice a month and each student made a twenty-minute presentation, followed by some 40 minutes of discussions. More and more students, often from other departments as well, came to attend these seminars. After a while my contributions have become short, students could themselves make suggestions, could discuss. Another problem relates more closely to the need for a comprehensive exam in the student s main speciality. For example, we have a course on Euro-psychology, where students really bring us decent work on this narrow topic, but they do not know at all what psychology is, in fact they do not even know that psychology is a social science. Therefore it seems to me that methodological seminars on broader issues in the discipline should also be made mandatory. Maybe when our higher education will be modified so that students will study methodology and philosophy already at the MA level, such content-seminars will not be necessary. We also created a plan for our comprehensive exams. First of all we will use regulations for PhD programs. And the candidates should pass an exam on the theme of their research work. This is a borrowing from the American system. The student should have then a topic for investigation, should create an overview of the literature and then represent it as research on the issue. If it is done well it will be considered as comprehensive exam on the specialty. Lika Glonti The earlier example described a wide-spread problem. If after five years of education our postgraduate students cannot write a research paper, why should they be allowed to enter doctoral programs? All of them have a masters degree meaning that they have prepared an MA paper. Their lack of writing abilities and research skills is a good indicator of the poor quality of our education at earlier stages. My conclusion is that we should reform not only the final stage of higher education but also the first and the second stages, we should reform the system as a whole. 16

17 Petru Chetrus We have been convinced once again that philosophy, foreign languages and informatics should not be components of the candidat minimum exam, as they are not components forming future specialists at the stage of doctoral education. I also think that we need to reinforce the link between the first, second and third level of higher education. The candidat minimum is necessary, but it should be reoriented to encouraging a deep study of the discipline in terms of methodology, project development and also in theoretical issues. Vladimir Fours I agree that if a doctoral candidate cannot compile literature for his or her doctoral dissertation, it is the deficiency of bachelor and master courses. Bachelor courses include academic reading and writing. Research seminars or colloquia are a must. In our research seminars students present their projects, describe their research at every stage of its implementation. I think that in spite of the common direction of connecting training at doctoral level first of all with research work, we should also give our students some advanced knowledge. And the candidate minimum or comprehensive exam should evaluate a broader understanding of the subject. The set of knowledge to be measured should be individualized based on the student s topic of research. In Lithuania they do not have comprehensive exams, instead they have a number of exams on special courses. Volodymyr Nikitin I know a German professor who had a very high percentage of successful defenses among his students. Each year minimum five postgraduate students defended their dissertation. How did he manage to do this? He had a technological scheme of developing a dissertation. And if a student failed twice to meet the requirements and deadlines of the professor s weekly scheme, he would expel you from his program. Those who met these requirements successfully defended their dissertations, though the professor created not a single outstanding scientist. Joanna Renc-Roe What I am hearing is not so much a deficiency of undergraduate or master s level courses but simply lack of attention to the main issue of postgraduate education, which is research. I would never go to any post-graduate school that would force me to take an exam in a subject that was not directly related to helping me develop my research project. Perhaps what we have is just too many courses and not enough independent research for students. I have nothing against courses at the doctoral level, I had courses myself. But all of the courses were essentially built around my own project to help me develop one aspect or another of my research. If you undertake doctoral studies it is presumed that you will become a researcher. And the only way you can develop research skills is while actually doing an independent research projects and managing it on your own. Taras Dobko I would agree with the opinion of other participants that in postgraduate courses a student should feel the difference between his doctoral studies and his earlier bachelor s or master s courses. There should be, for instance, seminars where students should learn how to write academic, scientific texts. In Ukraine there is a requirement that by the defense of the dissertation a postgraduate student should have some articles published in scientific journals. The question is whether students should have seminars that would help them develop academic writing skills. A candidate minimum should identify whether such skills are received in the course of education. At the doctorate level the relations between professors and postgraduate students should also be different than at earlier stages of studies. Postgraduate students should be treated as colleagues by their professors, more discussions should be involved. 17

18 Matyas Szabo I believe that sometimes coursework is a necessity to actually complete doctoral research. But I think that it should be the task of the supervisor to identify the gaps in the doctoral student s knowledge in the field, and recommend him or her those courses that would be useful for writing the dissertation and carrying out doctoral research. When we talk about the candidat minimum we all object to the fact that it is the same for all students, no matter what their research area. Many students might find it a waste of time to pass exams in generic topics, either because they have already studied those topics during their BA and MA degrees, or because some of the general subjects, such as philosophy or computer science, are not related to their research. Voldemar Tomusk I want to express my strong disagreement with my colleague who suggested that learning is a waste of time. I would suggest that the purpose of PhD studies is not really to confirm that the PhD holder is able to replicate the same kind of research projects for the rest of his or her life. I think that the PhD is more, it is rather a qualification that this person is able to do research in his discipline. The holder of a PhD represents the whole discipline, and he or she should able to carry out research projects and do scholarly work not only limited to the title, or to the particular topic of his or her dissertation. I think the PhD is more than a piece of research. It is an oversimplification to say that the PhD is limited to a technical exercise of carrying out research projects and then writing them down. Sophie Howlett What we actually have here are the two sides of the debate on what a PhD actually is. I am a product of the other side. Coming out of the English PhD system, we in fact learned about our discipline at the BA and the MA level. By the time we got to the doctorate level we seemed to have a significant foundation in our discipline. The PhD is basically viewed as an apprenticeship: by the time you actually finish your research, you are in a sense qualified to go out and do further research in your discipline. And there is/was an assumption that you have the basis in your discipline before you even go into the doctorate. The U.S. PhD for instance, will not make that assumption because much of the work that goes on in the US PhD is about establishing that foundation in the discipline, because it has not necessarily been offered before. It seems that in the UK the PhD is moving towards a slightly more compromise situation with a little bit more foundation of the discipline coming in. But essentially the UK PhD remains a kind of apprenticeship model, because of the nature of the BA and MA. So when you look at the UK, the US, or the double doctorate models you need to think not just in terms of what a doctorate is, but in terms of your whole higher education system: what it is offering and when. So it is a question of where are you coming from and where do you want to go. Joanna Renc-Roe Earlier I just wanted to share my experience coming from the British type of approach to PhD. It is a very narrow and specialized system. I strongly believe that people who have the doctorate should be stewards of the discipline. And I really strongly believe that the skill you gain allows you to develop knowledge in areas other than your narrowly defined research project. Gaining knowledge in the field, however, does not have to necessarily happen by attending courses and passing exams. I think that the PhD student should be able to read books in other areas, and evaluate their potential for the further development of his or her research project. I have four courses in my doctoral program, but they consist of four papers. So I think there are various ways of achieving the same goal. The basic principle of the British system is to be autonomous. It means that the persons themselves need to go through the process of selecting the literature, and defining research questions. 18

19 Volodymyr Nikitin It seems to me that the Bologna process is a formalized idea that the traveling of students and professors should be resumed to resemble Medieval educational experiences. The Bologna process is a possibility for students to study in various places as diplomas and degrees become compatible. I see a big future in the option to organize post-graduate courses based on this possibility. Nicolae Stratan I would like to address a question to my Georgian colleagues: now that you have a new form of preparing dissertations will you cancel the candidat minimum? Marine Chitashvili The candidat minimum, in terms of passing exams in philosophy, foreign language and IT, has already been cancelled. Some universities require students to pass an exam in English, while others only ask for a certificate that English was studied earlier. What we do have as compulsory are the research seminars, particularly focusing on methodology. In addition, we have compulsory courses in management and financing. We believe this is necessary for those people who stay in higher education. Nicolae Stratan Will the state pay the stipend for doctoral students? Who will pay the professors, supervisors? Marine Chitashvili The financing of doctoral programs is still not resolved. The law just states that the financing system will be in place starting from As for now the budget for doctoral programs is provided by the universities themselves, or expenditures are covered by doctoral students themselves. Session 4: Inter-Institutional Quality Control, Peer Review Discussions initiated by: Natalia Chernysh, Head, Department of Sociology, Lviv National University, Lviv, Ukraine Natalia Chernysh I would like to give an illustration for the issues touched upon by our rector in his introductory remarks. He said that the implementation of any kind of innovation, including doctoral studies, is a difficult process which very often is resisted even within the academic community. We mentioned already the consortium of 8 leading Ukrainian universities striving for autonomy. They have not succeeded yet, but I think that the implementation of doctoral programs became possible thanks to the idea of autonomy. We will do our best to make this experiment successful and initiate Ukraine s transition to a three-level educational system: Bachelor, Master and Doctorate. In a sociological survey carried out at my department we tried to investigate how professors, students and administrative staff view autonomy, and what their expectations are towards changes that could be brought about by autonomy. Although there were no direct questions related to the three-level higher education system, the study revealed that students are looking forward to the possibility of studying at various institutions and to having access to interdisciplinary programs. In this respect, we are really joining the Bologna process, in Western and Eastern Ukraine alike. 19

20 On the other hand, there is also a high level of resistance to change in the system of education. In my opinion this change should include the organization of research work at the doctoral level. In the new doctoral programs which will be created, we should avoid having too many theoretical courses. I would preserve the candidat minimum, but would change its content: focusing on the methodological and methodical aspects of the discipline. Volodymyr Nikitin We have evaluated the quality of education and scientific work carried out at the Academy of Public Administration. While the internal evaluation which reflected the opinions of the academy s staff and the wider academic community was positive, the external assessment made by the consumers of the academy s scientific products (officials in this case) was rather low. The external assessment revealed that there is a significant gap between consumers needs and the type of academic research carried out at the academy. Unlike in other countries, such as Britain, professional associations in Ukraine do not have a say in defining the content of education in their respective fields. To illustrate this point, I will give one example. Recently the academy has approved some 50 topics for post-graduate research, but none of them was directly connected to the governance reform in Ukraine. Iryna Starovoyt When talking about quality assurance, we have to emphasize that assurance is not only control. It is really important to think about certain means and certain scenarios which would introduce and develop a different culture of quality assurance. In our countries there are all kinds of external control procedures, but they simply do not work. Our task is to somehow find out how to make these procedures operational at the local, institutional level. In our experimental PhD program, we are guided by the idea that only those who designed and implemented this program can actually assure the quality of all the processes within the program. Quality assurance cannot be brought from outside. External quality assurance can only ever be a fraction of the total quality assurance taking place at a particular program. Quality needs to be assured through a process of internal, institutional self-evaluation. When I talk about self-evaluation I include the evaluation of a PhD program by alumni as well, evaluation of the program by university colleagues who worked within the program for a while, but left for certain reasons and now take another perspective. We should also pay attention to the important and yet often neglected key position of the supervisor who may act as major barrier or an important catalyst for growth and change. In our program we agreed to develop our own quality control system, both formal and informal, which would enable the continuous improvement of the program, as this is the most important function of quality assurance. Matyas Szabo Iryna, what did you mean by informal systems of quality control? Iryna Starovoyt I meant for instance, inviting colleagues to observe our teaching, asking for the opinion of guest lecturers in certain things, evaluating each other s work when we do team projects, team research. I think that self-reflection is the most important element of quality assurance and it is absolutely missing from most of our universities. Matyas Szabo I only asked my question because not long ago we held a short workshop on faculty evaluation for a small group of Russian professors who visited our university. And when we described the various forms - peer-evaluation, self-evaluation, students evaluation, etc - our visitors said that none of these procedures would work in the former Soviet Union. Only informal evaluation 20

21 would work, they argued. And what they actually meant by informal evaluation was gossip, things that people talk about on the corridors, and behind each other s back. I wanted to make sure that you did not refer to that kind of informal evaluation. Matyas Szabo I would suggestion to go back to what Iryna said, that quality control and peer-review systems exist at the universities, but they do not work. So can we think about ways of making them work? What steps need to be taken, what reform needs to be implemented in order to make quality assurance fulfill its purposes? Maria Zubrytska The first step which we started to discuss here in Lviv about half-a-year ago is to create an independent accreditation system in Ukraine. It would be an institutional system, currently we have DAK, the state accreditation commission. It seems to me that such commissions exist in all post-soviet countries, but under the new challenges and new demands they do not work. The paradigm of quality assurance could be changed by only a new, independent accreditation system. The new model of accreditation will be discussed in a forthcoming conference in Yalta, in January 2007, with the participation of the representatives of the 8 universities which are united into the consortium on university autonomy, together with partners from Western Europe. The conference is organized within the framework of a TEMPUS/TACIS project. I hope that at the end of January we will be able to present the Ukrainian way of institutional reform in accreditation. Sophie Howlett When formulating the topic of today s session, we were thinking about discussions on how universities could work with each other, and how also peers can work to support quality control at other institutions. So I wonder whether we have comments about that particular issue. How can you work with peers, also cross-border, and how to define the parameters of quality in a particular context? And also, I am asking our colleagues from Moldova whether you, as a small country, have been thinking about creating a network of quality control which is beyond Moldova? Galina Bulat Quality control is certainly one of the most important and difficult problems of today s universities. Therefore, according to the Bologna declaration and the agreements following it, ensuring quality of education is one of the main objectives of higher education institutions. This is why in Moldova there was an order issued by the ministry to create quality management units in all HE institutions. At the national level, unfortunately we do not have so far an agency of quality assurance. What we have is a department of accreditation at the Ministry of Education and Youth. Although I am a representative of this Ministry, I still believe that this is wrong, because accreditation should be carried out by an independent body. As for ensuring quality of doctoral programs, it is the task of the council of attestation and accreditation (equivalent to VAK). It seems to me that this is also wrong, because the quality of the whole higher education system should be monitored at all levels by a single body. Vladimir Fours In Belarus the whole quality of higher education is controlled by the state. Doctoral programs are designed according to a single standard, and the same applies to the candidat minimum. For instance, all professors and doctors receive their diplomas and degrees directly from the president. In Belarus the education landscape is characterized by the suppression of academic liberties, which attempts to be total. I fully support the idea of an independent non-governmental body which would be responsible for accreditation. However, in the Belarussian context, where any NGO is 21

22 perceived as a threat to the state, this idea is unconceivable. According to Belarussian legislation, even what I am saying now can be qualified as public discreditation of the Belarussian state. Marine Chitashvili As I have said earlier, in Georgia universities have full autonomy, but even this full autonomy is somehow regulated by the state accreditation service. In our law there is a special article according to which an alternative quality assurance body can be set up by state universities if they agree to create such a body. Internal quality assurance can be very helpful in curriculum development but it does not guarantee that what the university teaches is adequate in the discipline. I think it is absolutely necessary to build a network of universities, so that they can gain the mutual assurance that what they are doing is commonsensical. I very much appreciate the Ukrainian initiative and I think it is wonderful that 8 universities are setting up an independent quality assurance agency. But I would like to warn you that you should not close external links to evaluate your universities. Joanna Renc-Roe State accreditation is a very specific quality assurance: it is very summative but it is not necessarily formative. It can say which universities are qualified to grant certain degrees, but it will not help the improvement of the actual system. In some countries there are external evaluators of university programs: prominent scholars, often from abroad, can be charged with reviewing the whole program, not only judging whether the program is doing something commonsensical, but also indicating what areas of course work are completely missing or where the students consistently seem to have a weak point, be that in methodology or content. Sophie Howlett We were talking earlier this morning about the problem of how the university is supposed to decide for itself whether it is good enough to have doctorates in certain subject areas. We also talked about various structures of quality assurance, but I think that there is a dimension that has been missing here the role of the external expert. To have an external expert come in and evaluate our program is not a sign of weakness, or a sign that we are not sure about ourselves or that we need somebody from another country to tell us whether we are any good. It is simply normal. At Central European University we have a variety of advisory expert committees made up of people from different countries. Having international experts come and work with us provides a certain guarantee of quality. Indeed, a university when faced with peer-review, has a tendency to get rather interested in what is going on in its PhD programs, and not to put forward materials that are weak, students that are weak, programs that are weak. So peer review also acts as a catalyst for the institution to focus on a program and consider its quality. Nicolae Stratan I do not know what criteria we need to produce in order to check up quality, but I know that students choose to go to strong universities, where they have good professors, they have good libraries, good facilities. There are also departments and specialities with no competition at all, because students know that nothing can be studied there. We also have good, well equipped private universities, and both students and professors come there. Therefore I believe that students should tell us about quality. 22

23 Day 2: Quality Assurance Processes in the Doctorate Session 1: Admission, Retention, Graduation Discussions initiated by: Nicolae Stratan, Director, Center for University and Post-Graduate Education and Professional Development, Academy of Sciences, Chisinau, Moldova Nicolae Stratan In 2004 a new law on science and innovation was adopted in Moldova. It is a large law that introduced many changes into postgraduate education. As a step to centralizing science and development, the number of the academy s institutes has been reduced from 101 to 37. Regarding admissions, every year our Center for University and Post-Graduate Education at the Academy of Sciences requires from Ministries, and from higher education institutions, proposals for admission to doctoral programs. Based on these suggestions, our center develops an admission plan, which is then approved by the High Council of the Academy. Next academic year we will have some novelties in training doctorates. Those universities who meet the requirements and wish to organize doctoral programs, need to submit to our center in advance the list of suggested topics for future dissertations. Candidates therefore will see the topics in advance. In the past years, doctoral students would do a lot of postgraduate courses, after which they were given a supervisor, and only then we would give them the topic for research. Now the nominee will know in advance what topics are suggested for research. To be admitted to post-graduate courses, students need to pass entry exams in their speciality and in foreign languages. After admission to the doctoral program, students take informatics, foreign languages and methodology of scientific research, and are thus prepared to take the candidate exams. After the first year students pass exams in foreign languages and in informatics, after the second year methodology, while after the third year they take an exam in their specialty. During their doctoral studies students need to fulfill additional requirements, for instance to write one scientific article, to work with literature, to take part in one international conference, to pass the candidat minimum exams as above. At the end of each year students write a report on the implementation of their study and research plan. Those who did not meet the requirements of the plan are expelled. Sophie Howlett I can talk a little bit about the British experience in terms of the doctorate. It is often very easy to get into PhD programs at university, but getting a place does not mean much because all the universities know that the real quality control mechanism is the gaining of a scholarship to study from one of the research councils. In the old days, the PhD was a very free process, whereby students chose their own research topics. To me it is very strange to hear people talking about the government making lists of topics that would be then approved and offered to PhD students. Graduate programmes also apply to the European Union or some national research councils to receive research funding for a larger group project. Some of the research projects, traditionally before in natural sciences, but now increasingly also in the social sciences, provide certain paid doctoral places within them. So, now these programmes can announce full scholarships in certain research areas for which willing students must compete. Then obviously admission to the institution means also gaining the scholarship, and is therefore much more competitive. In some 23

24 social sciences and in humanities we still have individual doctoral projects: students would go to the university with an idea for a research project and will be accepted on the basis of the quality of the proposal. An important issue related to the PhD is that there are many students who leave doctoral programs. Now in the UK this is mainly because doing individual research is an extremely lonely business. Furthermore, the large number of students that go into the doctorate cannot possibly be employed by the universities, which means that the majority of students going into the programme will never be employed as academics. At the same time, there are some people who wish to gain a doctorate to work in policy studies or at higher levels in their own profession. The British higher education system realized that there are all these students who leave their doctoral programs after two or tree years with nothing. This is one of the areas where Britain has tried to work very hard over the past ten or fifteen years, thinking about how to make the PhD experience more useful for everybody, and how to allow students to leave their studies with some sort of recognition of what they have achieved - not just with missing years in their CVs. Given the different goals of doctoral students, much of the work that is going on around reconstructing the doctorate in the UK is connected also with building skills, building different levels of the doctorate, encouraging people to think about a number of different careers, and allowing them to take different forms of the doctorate. So now Britain offers about five different types of doctorates: some are purely research-based, some are a combination of course and research, and some are very oriented towards practical projects related to the person s vocation. One final point that I want to make is that in the old days some students submitted their doctoral dissertations some ten years after they enrolled in the program. The UK government and the universities have been trying to change this situation over the past 15 years. I am telling you all of this simply because I understand from my Ukrainian and Russian colleagues that student retention rates in your countries is becoming more and more problematic. Many of your accepted postgraduate students leave doctoral programs for various reasons, and many others graduate only after seven or eight years. I wanted to invite you to talk a little bit about these issues and think about how you would address them. Volodymyr Nikitin I myself am a doctor, but I do not work in an academic community. I work as a consultant in the government, but I do not think that I have lost anything. I do some research work because it is my nature. Recently we have identified that only ten percent of our PhD graduates who start to work are able to do independent work, the rest can work under somebody s guidance. The dilemma is whether we need to drag every postgraduate student to graduation if not all of them have the talent to hold leading or supervising positions in academia. Just as in sports, I think it is normal that some people drop out during the process. I think it is natural to have selection at the PhD level, but this needs to be done in an organized manner. Furthermore, the selection should already start at the MA level, as master programs already begin to prepare students for independent work, and can be considered the primary level of selection. We have two systems of postgraduate studies: at universities and at scientific research institutes. They have very different selection and attendance systems. Scientific research institutes usually train better for research work than universities. Likewise, MA programs should not be unified, they should be shaped according to the demands of the labor market. 24

25 Iryna Starovoyt I wanted to emphasize once again the relationship between quality control and quality of the program. The approach to quality assurance highly depends on how we answer the questions: what PhD teaching is about, and what PhD research is about. That is why I would like to address an important issue. If we think about student s admission, retention and graduation, and we try to link it to quality, we have to discuss three questions: What is evaluated during the admission process? What is evaluated during the retention process? And what is to be evaluated before graduation or during graduation? We also need to look at what possible PhD models would be effective or are needed in our context. We are focusing on and trying to project various processes in doctoral programs and their quality control, but we somehow avoid talking about people: about students, about teachers, about supervisors. Unfortunately all processes are rooted in what personalities are involved in those processes. Several other questions need to be addressed: how PhD students construct new meaning about their field while they are studying in PhD programs? What benefits and challenges do PhD students have when they participate in this or that PhD program? What kind of experiences do we promote? Sophie Howlett You are right, probably the process should take into consideration the human element, after all the process will influence students. We should also therefore discuss a quality control process that will result in a different kind of supervision or a different kind of supervisor, a different kind of doctoral student and a different kind of professional who enters the field. The process effectively forms all those involved in it. Matyas Szabo I would go back to what has been said about the completion rate of doctoral programs. What does it mean if only half of the admitted students graduate from a doctoral program? On one hand, it could mean that the program is very demanding, and the department or the institute does not anticipate that many of the accepted students are going to drop. I think if this happens year after year, then the admission policy probably needs to be changed. However, it can also mean that the process of quality control is very much in place, and there are several instances during the doctoral program when the performance of students is measured against certain criteria. On the other hand, I can give an example where the retention rate was nothing about quality per se: at the time when the PhD program in political science was introduced at Central European University, the department accepted double as many students as they wanted to graduate. At the end of the first year half of the students were asked to leave the program. So I think the completion rate alone does not say much about the quality of a doctoral program. Sophie Howlett If a university or an institute takes in a student, then the student should have a reasonable chance of achieving the goal of gaining the qualification. So, taking on people when you know statistically they are more likely to leave or there are high chances they are going to fail is now considered unethical. And that is one of the reasons why retention rates are considered an important measurement in terms of international benchmarking. I agree with Matyas that completion rate and time to completion do not tell us how good the program or the doctorate is, but they are a good sign of the philosophy of the program. 25

26 Yevhen Golovakha I feel that we are considering philosophical issues. For me planning postgraduate courses is a very concrete task. First of all, my postgraduate students should master the literature in the field, then they need to carry out the research, and finally to write the paper in two hundred pages. But I should help them to do this. Students should learn how to work with literature, how to find information, how to work with data. We have courses on scientific methodology, and we should invite specialists who would teach methodology and practical research. Marine Chitashvili I would like to come back to the problem of admissions and to raise a practical issue. In other countries, in other systems of doctoral education, are there so-called minimum average marks for admission? And are there additional requirements for students who wish to be admitted to PhD programs in disciplines or specialities other than their earlier MA degrees? And also I would like us to discuss the choice of dissertation topic. Sophie Howlett Admission to PhD studies is indeed an interesting issue. In the U.S. there is a graduate exam but along with it students may also be interviewed and their applications are certainly reviewed. In England the situation is slightly different, basically because there are so few scholarships in the UK in comparison with the US. In the UK unless you are going to pay for your studies yourself, the money will come only through individual research scholarships or from group research project funding. As I said before the key element is to gain the funding, rather than receiving a place in the program. Usually you would be sending to the university an application with an outline of your research topic: a couple of pages of what you want to do and to talk about, and then they will probably interview you. If everything is fine, they will probably accept you, but a lot of it depends whether they will have an appropriate supervisor for your topic. It is up to the student to look for a place that has a specialization that he or she is interested in, and then it is up to the individual supervisor to see if this is a student they would be interested in working with. Normally you would require a top level, first-class degree, but reference letters from previous supervisors can make a difference. Even at the best universities, supervisors will not have many students because PhD supervision is considered to be very intensive, and supervisors have to shepherd the student through the processes. This is a very important issue when you think about admission and completion as well. The other point you made, which is the movement between disciplines, is something that I do not fully understand yet, but according to Bologna documents students should be able to transfer between disciplines, between degrees. In my point of view it is fine if you transfer between BA and MA, but the transfer between MA and the doctorate is a more complicated matter for me because in a sense a lot of basic principles of study should have been established before PhD studies. Taras Dobko When for the first time I became familiar with the American educational system, the main thing which struck me was the difference between the training of Americans and of Ukrainians at different levels. Already at the BA level American students demonstrate more skills in critical and creative thinking, although the knowledge received is comparable. But it is exactly these skills that are crucial for independent research. At the MA level, the difference is already much bigger. I truly agree with opinions expressed earlier that in our conditions it is impossible to reform doctorate education without reforming the Master Program. Motivation for independent research should be 26

27 formed already at the MA level. It is the legacy of the Soviet system that students have limited options to choose courses from the curriculum. Maria Zubrytska I would like to ask my colleagues from Georgia. What about transfer from one discipline to the other? Could, for example, a students with a BA from the faculty of German language become an MA student in Cultural Studies? Lika Glonti Each department has the right to set up its own rules regarding transfer between disciplines. In some cases departments require students to take special courses before entering a masters program. Natalia Chernysh I would like to comment on earlier remarks by professor Nikitin about the differentiation of MA programs. Our university has already made steps in that direction. We have one interdisciplinary masters program in sociology, and we are in the process of creating another MA program in American Studies, which will have different subdivisions: Sociology, Political Science. We are very well aware that MA programs should not be similar to each other. We should also allow our students to continue their MA studies in subjects that are different from the ones they studied at BA level. We need to take into account that the majority of our students are two or three years younger than their colleagues from Western countries. Immediately from school they enter the university, and then they regret that they have chosen a certain speciality. They should be allowed to shift their speciality at the MA level. This creates some difficulties, because we need to educate students with various levels and background. At our university we pay attention to the connection between BA, MA, and PhD programs. Joined session: Provision of Courses, Supervision and Doctoral Research, the Defense of the Dissertation Discussions initiated by: Galina Bulat, Head, Department of Higher Education and Post-Graduate Studies, Ministry of Education and Youth, Chisinau, Moldova Most of the topics for today s discussion have already been discussed yesterday and earlier today. My colleague from Moldova talked already about doctoral programs in our universities and research institutes. I want to add some comments about the direction of the ongoing reforms. The reforms should be driven by the objectives of doctoral education. What do we expect from such training? What outcomes do we expect to reach? We know that doctoral study is a preparation for an academic career, but as has been already mentioned, this is not sufficient in the current circumstances. The Berlin conference of ministers of education recommended that we should reshape doctoral programs, so that we train students not only for academic career but also to meet the demands of the labor market. Therefore we are thinking about introducing such modules as project management, copyright, time management, human resources management and some specific courses. In this respect I would like to initiate discussion and to identify what is the optimal ratio between these courses and the individual work of doctoral students. Natalia Chernysh I will briefly describe the four-year doctoral program in social and cultural sciences here at Lviv University. The PhD program consists of ninety credits, and it is divided in several parts: courses in basic cultural and social theory, advanced cultural and social theory, research methodology and 27

28 courses for the candidat minimum - philosophy and foreign languages. There is then a comprehensive exam of twelve credits, and finally a doctoral seminar. What I particularly like about this program is its flexibility and that the training it offers is more and more specialized. This doctoral program was developed as a continuation of an MA program. A serious problem, however, is that we have a deficiency of professors. In Lviv there are only three doctors in Sociology, so we need to invite visiting professors from other Ukrainian universities, Kharkiv for example, and from abroad, who travel here to offer short, intensive courses. Volodymyr Nikitin I have a dual position: on the one hand, I am a supervisor of dissertations, a representative of the academic community, and on the other hand, I am an author who developed educational policies for Ukraine. I would like to begin with my first position, that of a supervisor. I know that I have three functions when I supervise dissertations. The first position is that of tutor. I interview students to see whether I am the right tutor for them, and whether they are truly interested in their research topics. What are the tasks of a tutor? The first one is to understand what the student intends to do, what are his or her interests. Then this interest should be shaped to be compatible with the requirements of the doctoral program. We should know for certain in what council the defense will take place, what topics are defendable at this council, what leaders are in the council, and who should be the opponent at the defense. My second function when I supervise students is a technological one. I should help my student plan and write the dissertation. And the third function is the role of scientist. I will analyze the logic of the research and of the dissertations, and point out where there are some references in practice. Sophie Howlett From the discussions we had so far, it is obvious that there are various ways of reorganizing the candidate degree into the PhD. Many of you have already said that part of the elements of the candidate degree in fact should go into the MA, so that when we start to work on the doctorate, we work at a slightly different level of specialization. So, for instance, we would assume that by the time people reach their doctoral study, they have reached a certain level in languages, and they have reached a certain level in informatics. Maybe we should start with the admission to doctoral programs. Should we demand students to submit a research proposal already at the point of admission? Also, one of the questions that we have not discussed is the fact that we might envision a certain degree of mobility between universities, when students are moving from BA and MA, from MA and PhD. So far we have worked with the same students. Should we invite more horizontal mobility between different universities and levels? And what can we do to promote that? General Group Suggestions: Brainstorming Section We believe in the freedom of the faculty and departments to come up with a reasonable list of requirements for admission into doctoral programs. I would say that we can come to the conclusion that we need a kind of dynamic and concrete quality framework. It should not be fixed forever, it has to be developed from within the program, and revised regularly. Another thing is that we really have to ask ourselves what difference do we make between students who enter the program and the students who graduate from it. So the question is how in the process of going through the program students become more confident as learners and more capable as thinkers? 28

29 Till now we did not think about PhD programs as predestined to be internationally connected There are many circles in our universities and academic institutions which would like to participate in the work of the European Union, in order to do research. But only a few institutions are ready to take part in international projects. How much time and resources we are ready to invest in order to prepare the next generation of researcher who really would be included into regional and global processes. In order to describe the many things we have discussed yesterday and today, we can also use the term internationalization. And by that we mean a number of different things. It means thinking about foreign languages, it means trying to publish abroad, it can mean trying to talk about the other countries in your curriculum. There is a program of the European Union which introduces institutional changes for countries joining the EU. It describes the criteria for institutional reforms. Training is one of the five compulsory elements of these reforms. But whom should we train? Researchers, professors, PhD supervisors? Instead of training supervisors it would be really important to create spaces where discussions on improving the quality of doctoral programs really take place among colleagues. They should debate what is happening in academia and how could we improve that? What do we do with students? How do we organize doctoral research training? How will we organize the content part of the course work? What new approaches can we bring into our programs? You have to put things into some kind of framework. We also talked about the problem of choosing the supervisor. Some professors are willing to supervise many students, as they receive a significant amount of money after each student they supervise. But there are cases when only a few students actually succeed in defending their dissertations. What should be done in such cases? Who is responsible for the failure? In Romania there are some very strict criteria on who can be a doctoral supervisor, and there are strict criteria on the number of students one professor can supervise. If you are a qualified professor, who meets all those criteria and you only have five students to supervise, the chances that those five students will defend their dissertations are very high. I just wanted to make one more point. How do we make sure that we have a quality final result? How do we examine the PhD at the end? Do we need to go through all the different forms of attestation? Should examination be within faculty or using external experts? Do we need some sort of peer review across the country? What do you think? You have to ask yourselves these things. Do we still need the old examination procedure? Or should we do something differently? I was counting that now there are basically four levels at which the dissertation needs to be approved: the supervisor, the department, the specialized workshop and finally the scientific council. Should not this be simplified? If four levels were not necessarily effective, should we introduce another level, or is there a better solution? 29

30 Group Conclusion Summary: We can summarize some of our main points. In the whole process of doctoral education, from admission to the defense of the dissertation we need to focus on how to build quality in all the steps of the process, rather than introducing further bureaucracy and some shallow formal criteria. Course work, supervision, and individual research need to be the major components of all our doctoral programs. Communities building up doctoral programs (students, supervisors, lecturers) need to reflect and work together on how to improve the products of doctoral programs: qualified graduates, who are stewards in the discipline capable of carrying out further independent research in their broader fields, and doctoral dissertations that are meant to contribute to the development of the discipline by exploring new areas, new approaches, producing new knowledge. Peer review systems, cooperation in international research projects and cross-border doctoral schools, participation at prestigious international conferences, seminars, and training, publishing in peer-reviewed journals should all help improve the quality of the product. 30