LOYALTY TO THE REGIMES AND "NATIONAL INTERESTS"

University Education after Dissolution of Former Yugoslavia

Universities share the destiny of the societies they belong to, but with their ethics and free thinking, they are the better part of them. That is what it used to be like in the now former Yugoslavia, despite Marxist pressures and "directives", or demands that the professors be morally and politically eligible (obedient to the Communist Party). Special bodies, university committees of the League of Communists, safeguarded ideological purity. There were occasional minutely conducted purges, "brotherly" distributed around different universities, such as the one which hit the so-called "praxisists" around that Yugoslavia. Professors who were not sympathizers of the regime remained without their jobs, sometimes in Ljubljana (Slovenia), sometimes in Zagreb (Croatia), sometimes in Belgrade (Serbia). Nevertheless, Yugoslav universities brought up critical intelligentsia, and in the "cellars" of the universities, liberal, anti-dogmatic thought used to smoulder, along with a thirst for democracy, intellectual wrath of the students and professors against political unison.

Then war occurred, the country dissolved, universities in new states found themselves swimming in different waters, but the price they are paying at the moment can generally be brought down to impoverishment, brain drain, loss of the little autonomy they had, loyalty to parties in power which is often justified with vague "national interests".

Along with these common problems, certain specific, individuial ones come out to the surface: in Kosovo or Macedonia ethnic variances between official and "parallel" universities, in Bosnia & Herzegovina demolished universituy buildings and studying under shell fire, in Serbia students who are paying dearly for tumultous demonstrations against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in 1992 with complete apathy and "status of an ostrich with its head stuck deeply into sand".

From war to intellectual ruins

Sarajevo University breathes in the rhythm of war everyday life. And this rhythm is imcomparable with relatively peaceful acquisition of knowledge in other universities in former Yugoslavia. For instance, the Electrotechnical Faculty with its entire equipment is in the territory controlled by Karadzic, so the teaching is organized, but without the indipensable computer equipment, in the premises of the Economnic Faculty which were also damaged in shelling of the city. The building of the Mechanical Enginnering Faculty is on the frontline itself and it is largely demolished. Students and professors still gather there, entering through a gap in the wall and hiding from the snipers. Certain parts of the Faculty building have been taken by the Army of B&H, and the Post, Telegraph and Telephone College was burnt to the ground together with the Main Post Office building back in the first months of the war.

The few experts who have remained in Sarajevo, for almost four years have received no new information or references. University professors often deeclare that they have no heart to ask their students to have the quantity of knowledge and competences they used to expect from their students before the war in order to pass the exams - running away from shells, searching for water or food and carrying it back to empty hostels, leaves little time for studying by candlelight. Therefore, it is no wonder that a mother of a medical student in Sarajevo says: "Maja has straight As at the university, but I would not like to be her patient!" If one adds the fact that an exceptionally highly esteemed Sarajevo member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts spent his time in the city first going to the public kitchen trying to save himself from starvation and then to his post at the university, it becomes quite clear that apart from cessation of the everyday shelling, Sarajevo needs a change of the attitude of legislative and executive authorities towards prominent experts and the University in general.

In the part of Bosnia & Herzegovina controlled by Karadzic's forces, in the so-called "Republic of Srpska", a Serb university was organized with its seat in Banjaluka, while the so-called "Herzeg-Bosnia" under Croat control, institutionalized its own university in Mostar, which operates using curricula and textbooks from the neighbouring Republic of Croatia.

On the other pole of the once joint country, in Serbia and Montenegro, universities work in peace, but, as the authorities like to say, under "unjust and undeserved" sanctions introduced by the international community against the remainder of Yugoslavia (they included equally education and culture) due to the aggression against Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Hyper-inflation during winter 1993 completely ruined university education. That is when professors tried to maintain the level of teaching in freezing buildings, without even essential equipment and preparations, giving lectures to hungry students. At the Faculty of Mining & Geology, a member of the staff died every two months. Assistant Lecturer, Mira Skarlo, died just before New Year's eve, and her burial could not be scheduled for three whole days. Her retired husband simply could not collect 800 billion dinars (800 German marks at the time) for the burial, and the mentioned Faculty had just 45 billion on its account. Dean Miroslav Markovic calculated that the sum was not sufficient even to buy alcohol for cleaning the preparations. At the time, salaries of professors amounted to 10 to 20 marks which was sufficient, according to general judgement, to humiliate the people and destroy their will-power for intellectual struggle.

Belgrade University alone gathers 30 faculties, eight institutes, the university library and about 60 thousand employees, the salary of a professor with 30 years experience now being about 200 German marks, while assistant lecturers receive a little above 100 marks, which still can not cover basic food expenses. Dr Milan Bozic, Professor of mathematical logic explained the economic position of the University in the weekly Vreme: "The University was the first to face the 'fundamental dilemma of the nation'. We are the first victims of introducing parliamentary democracy in the nineteenth-century manner - 'put yourself at the master's service'. The state holds the most powerful instrument of repression in its hands - money. In a totalitarian society, the regime rules by means of the police, in a democracy by means of money, and here, by means of both the police and money - meaning, I guess, that we are progressing."

As for new instruments for work, or new references, the University can do nothing but dream about acquiring them. Before the war and introduction of the sanctions, in 1980 for example, just the Department of Social Psychology of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade used to receive 72 foreign journals. Since 1990 not a single volume has arrived.

The Montenegrin University did not have money for acquisition of modern equipment, references, participation of its experts in international seminars and congresses even in the best of times. Nowadays, even less. This is certified by the story of one of its professors - a European expert for aluminium. The Germans used to invite him often to assist them whenever they met with a problem in his field of study. But, once the international blockade against Montenegro and Serbia was introduces, these contacts were interrupted. Six months ago, the Professor received an invitation from Germany, with a detailed description of a problem his assistance was sought for solving. All he could do was answer the Germans as follows: "I need at least three months just to decode what you want from me!" What has happened? Technology has progressed in the meantime so much that this competent expert is not "in" any more. Despite everything, Vice-Chairman of the University Senate, Dr Branko Radulovic, is an optimist. He believes that chances are the University will soon win its financial autonomy, and measures have been taken for tenure renewal of lecturers and creation of other conditions which will enable this institution to teach in compliance with modern curricula.

University teachers of two centres in Slovenia - Ljubljana and Maribor, experienced incomparably less problems. Their state waged war for just about ten days, there was no major material damage, and Slovenia, as the best developed former Yugoslav republic, found it easiest to adapt to European market concept. Nevertheless, people in the mentioned two universities believe that the finacial situation is very bad. The Universities receive money from the state budget which is insufficient for various programs. Professors who are highly esteemed abroad, resolve their economic problems by visiting different European and American universities and often by publishing books both in Slovenia and abroad. Money for operation of certain faculties are a much greater problem. Technical faculties somehow managed to resolve these problems ten years ago when they started joint projects with the industries. It is more difficult for faculties of social sciences, so curious advertisements appeared two months ago - Faculty of Social Sciences appealed to its former students (who are now hold prominent posts in the society) to help it to collect money for the construction of a new building because the old one (the former political school of the Slovenian Communist Party) does not provide even the essential conditions for work.

"Choose the eligible, not the competent"

Speaking about autonomy of the university in war-tortured Sarajevo is almost pointless. Besides a shortage of resources for necessary students' drills, shortage of textbooks and personnel, the authorities of Alija Izetbegovic politicized this segment of the society together with everything else, so it is not unusual that a highly competent expert who remained in the besieged city is prevented to work at the faculty where he used to work for years before the war. The reason - his membership in an opposition civic party, since the recognizable slogan is at work in this space : "Choose those who are eligible, not those who are competent".

It is a fact that a state at war is far more interested in recruiting soldiers than new students. Data on those killed in the battlefield show that a large majority of them were young men who would have held books in any other more fortunate country of the world instead of guns. In the atmosphere of the war, the legal and ownership status of faculties and institutes is not defined, similarly as that of culture and health service. Through the so-called Management Boards they are controlled by the state, meaning in Bosnia's reality - by a single party, the Party of Democratic Action. At this moment, protagonists of the project "To Be in Bosnia" recruited by independent intellectuals are the only ones who are trying to force the authorities of Alija Izetbegovic to take a different stance towards the education system in B&H. As Dr Aleksandar Kalmar, Professor of the Mechanical Engineering Faculty in Sarajevo, says, maintenance of the present situation would mean destruction of the very foundations of the society.

On the other pole, in peaceful and richer Slovenia, polemics about depolitization of university are also topical. Dr Tine Hribar, one of the four professors dissidents in the former regime, says: "Autonomy does not directly imply apolitical stance of the professors. I believe that it should have always been, and still is a matter of privacy. Ideology, therefore political decisions as well, should not be present at the university at all. It is a place for expertise! A professor may have any opinion he chooses, and he can publish it anywhere he chooses. But what he tells his students is a completely different matter. When he teaches he must not advocate any party policy!"

Political games about autonomy of university are played in Macedonia too, but with somewhat different roles. There, the Senate of the University "St. Kiril and Metodij" is opposed to the adoption of the new draft Law on University Education, and its members believe that the Ministry of Education wishes to jeopardize the autonomy of the University. However, there are opinions that in fact, the liberal lady Minister, Emilija Simovska, has set out in a struggle against conservative university workers.

The Law on University Education adopted in October 1993 in Croatia was expected with enthusiasm. At the time, the Government bluntly refused numerous comments of the opposition which referred to stifling of autonomy and excessive authorizations of some of the university bodies. Nowadays, a year and a half later, weaknesses have become obvious, but the Government accepted to introduce some minor "cosmetic" changes.

It so happened that university bodies with too big authorizations were taken over by men to measure of the ruling Croat Democratic Community. Prof. Dr Zdravko Sancevic became the head of the Managing Board of the University in Zagreb, who is at the same time the Croat Ambassador in Bosnia & Herzegovina, although these two offices are incompatible, demanding everyday presence and supervision. The Managing Board got its "corrective" too, easily recognizable in the person of the President of the University in Zagreb and the Chairman of the Assembly of Presidents of all universities in Croatia, Prof. Dr Marijan Sunjic, an esteemed physicist and Professor at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

When Sunjic became the President in 1991 he appeared as an enthusiastic supporter of a "university above politics" and "democratic mechanisms of control", "ethical renewal of the university". In just a short period of time, however, he turned into a party leader, since in autumn 1993 already, he was elected one of the vice-presidents of the Croat Democratic Community. The University public has agreed too quickly and too readily to lowering of initial great expectations, among other, due to the war. The Independent Trade Union of Sciences and University Education opposed the elections, demanding a change of behavior from the President of the University and freezing of his office of the vice-president of the ruling party. None of the Trade Union "demands and expectations" dating back in winter 1994, were considered too seriously by the President of the University, who obviously relied on a strong support of the ruling party and President Tudjman himself.

It seems that this moment is not convenient for the the party in power to open university issues, but powerful antagonisms do exist, and it is therefore likely to expect that the political autumn in the shadow of the forthcoming elections will have difficulties in avoiding the university as one of the burning issues. Will the party in power successfully use the next few months in order to firmly pull all the strings it holds in its hands, by deploying its men to key positions at the faculties, primarily depends on the skill of the opposition to prevent it in accomplishing this. It might even be made easy for the opposition, because the entire legal profession is against certain provisions, in fact, the initiative for changes was supported by all four Croat Law Schools in all four university centres.

If a certain manoeuvering space for the struggle for the autonomy of the University still exists in Croatia, it seems that the regime in Serbia has won this struggle a long time ago. The intellectual force and energy manifested by professors and students in 1992 at all the universities in Serbia (there are six of them), when they demonstrated for days against nationalistic policy and usurpation of the media, demanding resignation of Slobodan Milosevic, did not appeal to the regime at all. The authorities decided to prevent any further collective engagement of the university and it succeeded in it, so that Belgrade University, the most rebellious in former Yugoslavia, has now become just a mere sum of different faculties.

First, a man loyal to the regime (Dr Dragutin Velickovic) was appointed to be the President of the University. Then the regime arranged adoption of a codex with a chapter devoted to offences and penalties for "politically tendentious informing of the domestic and international universities, scientific and political public about vital interests of the Serb people..." Economic exhaustion of both students and professors came later. Although the faculties are autonomous in their expert activities (their programs need not be verified by the Ministry), and the ruling ideology is not openly imposed - other methods are used: strong control of the state from without concerning development of different departments, courses, groups, distribution of money, election of leadership of the University.

Zagorka Golubovic, a professor of the Faculty of Philosophy with a few decades of experience claims that it has never been worse, although in former Yugoslavia she was expelled from the University as uneligible. At a point, she declared that she had never in her practice met with such complete silence and lack of interest. "Whenever I enter the Faculty, I wonder what's the use of teaching", she lamented recently. According to another professor from Belgrade, the students now believe that they cannot influence anything. June 1992 cost them dearly, because they were left on their own, deserted, betrayed by everyone. This Professor thinks that it is an illusion to try to animate them for any collective general well-being. They trust noone any more. The League of Students of Belgrade has practically become a post of the ruling offspring. Last year it awarded Slobodan Milosevic a medallion for "achieved merits in raising the students' standard".

One way ticket

At the Slovene University, there was less political restraint even at the time of Marxist-Leninist orientation. Many subjects were taught there by professors who have never been members of the Communist party, which was unthinkable in some other communities of the joint state. That is why there was no drain of either young experts or professors, neither before nor after Slovenia left Yugoslavia.

From Sarajevo, however, at the very beginning of the war, convoys of refugees took away a large number of university personnel and professors. Sixty per cent of professors from the Medical School alone left, about 70 per cent from the Faculty of Stomatology, Mechanical Engineering was left without almost 70 per cent of its personnel too, and the trend continues. Less than 50 per cent of university personnel in general have remained.

In Macedonia it is believed that the University has become the "headquarters" of conservative intellectuals, due to the very fact that majority of those who deserve to teach there have gone abroad a long time ago.

How many experts, most frequently young, have left Montenegro just in the past five years and gone abroad, noone knows exactly, but assessments speak of a figure above two thousand, which is for Montenegro (with the total of 616 thousand inhabitants and area of 14 thousand square kilometres) equal to a natural catastrophe! They were joined by quite a significant number of talented high school students who are enrolled in American and English colleges, hoping to stay there. According to the latest unofficial data, out of the total number of young people who have left Montenegro in the past 15 years, as much as 67 per cent have left since the beginning of dissolution of former Yugoslavia.

It is impossible to get reliable data about brain drain from Serbia either, but it is believed that since the beginning of the war, 200 thousand young people have left. Only in the period between 1990 and 1993, 719 scientific workers have gone abroad.

"Brains" might return to this space some day, when the regimes become smarter. Whether it will be possible to catch up with the world of science and technics gone far ahead - grandchildren of those who are students and warriors now will answer.

Frame 1: ALTERNATIVE KOSOVO UNIVERSITY

This is the fifth academic year in Kosovo that students Albanians are acquiring university education in privately-owned houses and cellars, while their Serb and Montenegrin compatriots are using well-equipped amphitheatres and laboratories of the Prishtina University. The reason for this "redistribution" was conditioned by controversies between the Serb and the Kosovo Ministries of Education dating back to school year 1991/92. Expelling of teachers, professors and students from schooling institutions is interpreted by the teaching personnel in Albanian as tendency of the authorities to "prevent education of the Albanians".

The newly appointed President of the Prishtina University, Radivoje Popovic, apart from renown "fiery" speeches and triumph "that separatists will not parade around the Serb University", implementing the stances of the Republican Ministry of Serbia, "made it public" that the number of students Albanians must be reduced according to parity 1 to 1, although until now, in reference to the ethnic composition of the population of Kosovo, it was three to one in favour of the Albanians.

There are no indications that anything could be changed in the next school year either, despite the 12 rounds of talks of the two ministries in conflict. Education of young Albanians remains at the mercy of donations, and just symbolically of local benefactors. Nevertheless, in the next school year, the parallel university will receive 6,077 high school graduates, out of which 5,017 will enroll at the university, and 1,955 in colleges. Last year, there were about 11 thousand students enrolled at this university, so that the figure is practically cut in two. This is believed to be the result of emigration of the population to Western countries. Expenses of studying are also too great for the modest budget of average families in Kosovo. Enrolling alone at one of the 13 alternative faculties costs 140 German marks, application 20, request to appear at an exam 10 German marks, each semester 70.

Nevertheless, after four years of studying in cellars and privately-owned premises, the most commonly heard question among graduated university students is - what can they do with the diploma which is not recognized by the current Serb authorities. The only way out they see either abroad or in any activity which will provide them with temporary material existence.

Frame 2: MACEDONIAN DISSATISFACTION

The problem of education of the Albanians opened in Macedonia after it became independent, when students could not use facilities of other university centres of former Yugoslavia.

It is expected that 4,452 freshmen will enroll at the Skopje University "St. Kiril and Metodij" this year, and additional 1,203 at the Bitola University. In order to resolve the issue of the presence of non-Macedonians at these universities, two years ago, the Government reached a decision on "quotas" which prescribe that ten per cent of the enrolled freshmen could be recruited from different ethnic groups - "nationalities". This way of solving "equality" in the sphere of university education satisfied noone. While students of Macedonian nationality claim that their colleagues, non-Macedonians are "privileged", non-Macedonians, especially the Albanians, believe that this is just a continuation of a discriminating attitude of the local authorities.

Together with the existing universities - the one in Skopje and the other in Bitola, the so-called "unrecognized" university in Tetovo started operation this year, where teaching is in Albanian language, and the first generation includes about 500 students. That is how the Albanians tried to resolve their dissatisfaction increased since their former educational "valve" - the Prishtina University has been closed for them. Opening of the alternative Faculty is explained by the fact that Western Macedonia has no universities, while in Eastern Macedonia almost every town has a college or a faculty. The opinion of the Albanians is that the university network is concentrated in the part of Macedonia where majority of the population is - Macedonian.

Gordana Igric (Belgrade) in cooperation with Mirsada Bosno (Sarajevo, B&H), Meri Stajduhar (Zagreb, Croatia), Janja Klasinc (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Veselko Koprivica (Podgorica, Montenegro), Tahira Govori (Prishtina, Kosovo), and .... (Skopje, Macedonia)