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Volume 11, Issue 6 
REGIONAL NEWS
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REGIONAL NEWS
Two major laws concerning higher education were passed by the Icelandic Parliament in December 1997.
The first law sets the general framework for the operation of higher education institutions in the country.
Their independence is being increased and they are also being made more accountable.
This includes greater independence in financial affairs, but a financial contract is to be drawn up between each institution and the minister of education, science and culture.
The minister also negotiates with the institution as to whether and to what extent they are to engage in research.
Lines of administrative authority are clarified in the law and the influence of outside parties is being increased as two external members are to take a seat on the governing committee of higher education institutions.
According to the legislation, the minister of education, science and culture is now allowed to set rules on quality evaluation and certification of degrees.
The law will be fully implemented over the next two years.
The second law allows for the merging of four colleges: the College for Pre-School Teachers, the College of Physical Education and the College of Social Pedagogy with the existing University College of Education. The aim of the law is to strengthen teacher training in Iceland.
The new University College of Education has been fully operational with a new curriculum since the autumn of 1998.
- Le Magazine
Italy is introducing short degrees for school-leavers who have all the qualifications for university entry but prefer to get into the workplace quickly.
University Minister Luigi Berlinguer announced that the new “super diplomas” will be the result of one or two years of non-university study, plus hands-on internships in participating companies.
The project is a further step in Professor Berlinguer’s campaign to modernize Italian higher education, and make it respond better to the needs of the job market.
“This type of training is demanded by social realities, by the companies and by the European Community,” said Berlinguer. “The training courses will also be worth credits that the students will be able to use should they subsequently want to go on to a university.”
Universities already offer “short degrees” of two to three years in technical fields, but they have not proved very popular among students, who see them as second rate.
There are also three-month vocational training programs for young people who have not finished school.
Super-diploma courses will also be open to people with school-leaving certificates who are already working and wish to improve their qualifications.
“Short degrees,” introduced four years ago, provoked protests from left-wing student organizations.
They see short degrees as an attempt to re-create a class structure in higher education and perceive the degrees to be a shift from the ideal of a full university education.
But the scheme announced by Berlinguer, who is a member of the Post-Communist Democratic Party of the Left, is so closely linked to the needs of the job market that it is unlikely to arouse opposition.
A university ministry spokesman said the courses will be organized by the regions in conjunction with local companies.
Teachers will not only be drawn from schools, universities and technical colleges but also from industry and the professions.
The first courses will begin this academic year.
The project should be fully operational by 1999-2000.
- Times Higher Education Supplement
This fall, Poland is opening nine higher-education institutions of a new type.
Offering three-year bachelor’s degrees, the institutions will train students for jobs as laboratory technicians, legal assistants, medical assistants and schoolteachers, among other occupations.
Called simply “professional schools,” the institutions will offer training that is more practical and less academic than that provided by universities.
The schools will be a cross between United States-style community colleges and four-year institutions.
Polish officials say the schools will most closely resemble the German Fachhochschule.
The professional schools are designed to help Poland increase the number of young people receiving some form of postsecondary education by offering an alternative to the basic five-year university programs that lead to a master’s degree.
The new schools are being located in towns that do not already host a higher-education institution.
About 20 percent of Poland’s college-age population is enrolled in full-time higher-education programs.
To help Poland become a modern European country, “we need at least 30 percent” enrolled, said Jerzy Woznicki, rector of Warsaw University of Technology.
It remains to be seen how successful the professional schools will be in attracting students.
In recent years, Polish universities have introduced bachelor’s-degree programs in some subjects, but they have not attracted many young people.
The traditional master’s degree still has great prestige, and students feel that with only a bachelor’s degree, “they will have no chance of finding work,” said Woznicki.
The Conference of University Rectors originally was against the establishment of the new schools.
“We felt we could provide the shorter programs better and more inexpensively,” said Aleksander Koj, rector of Jagiellonian University in Kraców.
But he said the universities have now accepted the job of supervising the schools.
- Chronicle of Higher Education
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