PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

1
PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

• Sjur Bergan
• Head, Dept. of Higher Education and History
  Teaching
• Council of Europe

2
BACKGROUND

• Traditionally a strong feature of higher
  education in Europe
• Reaffirmed by Bologna Ministers in Praha 2010 and
  Berlin 2003
• Ministers reaffirm their position that higher
  education is a public good and a public
  responsibility (Berlin)
• Stating the obvious or expressing concern?
• How to make it a reality in modern society?

3
ACTORS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

• Higher education institutions
• Staff
• Students
• Public authorities
• Non-governmental organizations
• International organizations
• Commercial companies

4
PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT?

• Framework
• Exclusive public responsibility
• Equal opportunities
• Leading public responsibility
• Financing
• Substantial public responsibility
• Provision
• Substantial public responsibility

5
INSTRUMENTS

• Normative instruments
• Policy instruments
• Practice

6
NORMATIVE INSTRUMENTS

• Legislation
• Other normative instruments
• Codification of policies and goals not the
  other way around
• Limits of legislation what does it make sense to
  regulate through legal means?
• Interpretation of legislation

7
POLICY INSTRUMENTS

• Policy papers and declarations
• Programs (action and policy)
• Funding

8
PRACTICE

• Cooperation with stakeholders
• Information
• Awareness raising

9
PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY IN MODERN SOCIETY

• Take account of complexity of society
• Draw on contributions of many actors
• Recognize autonomy of institutions
• Recognize that public funding is likely to be
  insufficient for high performing HE
• Use variety of instruments to exercise public
  responsibility