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Education in Transition: Issues and Policies in Czech and Slovak Education
Institute on East Central Europe
March, 1997
The 1989 Czechoslovak revolution marked the end of communism in Czechoslovakia and the beginning of a period of thinking about what transition from communism meant. Had communism `lost' and the values of democracy and capitalism `won,' as Fukuyama claimed early on? Was this "the end of history"? 1 Fukuyama's perspective suggested that, after decades of unfortunate distractions, Central and Eastern Europe was now ready to "catch up" with the logical development of social forces. The implication was that this "catching up" would occur rapidly and with little serious social disruption. In fact, this was a historically unique period of transition and no one quite understood what this would mean for the transformation of these societies.
Education plays an important role in development. It is also elusive. Education is a particularly slippery institution. It is a reflection of, and an important tool for, the process of transformation. It both reflects and affects actions in political, economic and cultural institutions. It can lead to economic opportunity, promote social cohesion and affirm values and is often considered as a central force in development, but at the same time frustrates efforts to reduce it to quantifiable inputs and outputs.
What has been the role of education in Czechoslovakia and, later, in the Czech and Slovak Republics? What have been the important issues and theories about this period that can guide us in considering education's part in this period of transition? This essay will present a Communist-era background on education in Czechoslovakia, review common theories about transition in Central and Eastern Europe, and then consider how they might help us think about the specific conditions in education in the Czech and Slovak Republics.
Czechoslovakia up to the Velvet Revolution
Prior to 1989, the guiding principles for education in Czechoslovakia were universal, uniform education, general access to higher education and the integration of general and vocational education. After compulsory elementary education and the gymnasium, several options were available, including training and apprenticeship, which offered a combination of theoretical and practical instruction along the polytechnic tradition. Before 1989, more than 50 percent of students over age 15 attended some type of these training programs. Vocational education made up 59 percent of secondary school education. Some of these programs were geared for entry into the workplace, while others led to higher education programs. The percentages for students leaving school were: 20 percent from gymnasia, 23 percent from technical schools, and 45 percent who could compete for university admissions of whom 15 percent were accepted. 2 Although the system was generally considered to produce qualified, well-skilled workers, the numbers above show that only a fraction of those eligible went on to university education.
The state set educational policy during this period. The nomenklatura principle for instructors emphasized political considerations over professional competence. State-controlled quota systems and administrative correctives sought to rectify class inequalities in student enrollment. These measures created "forced downward educational mobility" which reduced education's allure, as well as clouding the transparency of the admissions process. The "wage revolution" of the early 1950s favored general over higher education and further reduced the desirability of attaining higher education. By the time of the revolution, 44 percent of children did not consider education as a path to success, and 60 percent did not consider competence to be a path to success. 3
In general, egalitarian principles undermined competitive, meritocratic principles. There was widespread general education and less emphasis on higher education. Even as late as 1993, both Republics had between 85 and 90 percent from the corresponding age group enrolled in secondary education, while only 16 to 17 percent were enrolled in tertiary education. 4 Czechoslovakia placed in the middle of Eastern Bloc countries in terms of stressing equal access to general education versus a more competitive system.
State-imposed egalitarian measures do not preclude inequality. Severe regional inequalities existed. 5 Data from the 1980s analyzed by Peschar and Popping show that al-though remarkable growth in education had occurred in Central and Eastern Europe, the "opportunity patterns" (removal of barriers to educational mobility) were highest in the USSR and Bulgaria, followed by countries such as Hungary and Poland, with Czecho-slovakia showing a relatively closed structure of educational opportunity. Thus, despite shared egalitarian principles of universal, uniform education, it can be misleading to generalize about the educational structure among Central and Eastern European countries. In fact, differences existed even within the country; the authors point to greater advances in educational opportunity in Slovakia that compensated for conditions in the Czech Republic and thus complicate the interpretation of the data. The authors suggest that similar conditions might complicate our understanding of the situations in other countries, as well. 6
Key problems in education before 1989 included overcrowding, the chaotic integra-tion of general and vocational education, and -- despite the generally good quality of edu-cation -- a "passive anarchy" that sapped the spirit of the educational system. 7 The principle of equality of educational access in Czechoslovakia was also threatened by difficulties. School closings and insufficient instruction in Hungarian and Ukrainian for ethnic minori-ties in Slovakia made equal access difficult in some areas. These problems persisted well after the revolution; in 1991, kindergarten and grammar schools in ethnically mixed regions there were often forced to give Hungarian students instruction in Slovak, and Slovak stu-dents instruction in Hungarian, when student numbers did not allow for a class in their own language. In addition, a far lower proportion of Hungarian high school students received instruction in their language than Slovak students. 8 Ethnic issues remain important.
From Velvet Revolution to Velvet Divorce
At the end of 1989, students arrived at school fresh from the experience of having participated in a peaceful, popular revolution. They found themselves caught between a state just beginning to think about the transition and an educational institution calcified from years of nomenklatura, "passive anarchy," and fragmented departments. The students then became the early catalysts for educational change, meeting separately with the Slovak Minister of Education 9 and Václav Havel in November 1989. 10
Some changes were rapid. Compulsory courses in Marxism-Leninism were abolished, new textbooks were printed, and foreign language requirements were rewritten. 11 New educational laws were passed in May 1990. The 1990 University Law gave control of planning and academic freedom back to the individual universities. More comprehensive changes were slower in coming. Two years later, when Petr Vop_nka, the Minister of Education, finally announced "First Step" in January 1992, a document that was to be the blueprint for a comprehensive educational bill, he met with resistance. The document blamed teacher passivity and a lack of finances as the two principle obstacles to educational reform. He announced that financial hardship would mean no raises for Czech teachers. It was not surprising, then, that his "First Step" policies met with resistance from teachers and administrators. 12 Interestingly, even though "First Step" recognized the importance of lack of finances, it did not contain any financial recommendations.
Clearly though, financial constraints played an important part in the structure of education in Czechoslovakia. Almost all writers agree that financial constraints have been an important limitation on the transformation, or even maintenance, of education there. Between 1990 and 1992, the cost of university housing and meals tripled, and a flood of teachers left low-paying university jobs for jobs elsewhere. In spite of Vop_nka's vow of no raises for teachers, in 1992 the Ministry of Education finally gave university teachers a 20-25 percent pay raise, and a 40-45 percent pay raise for primary and secondary teachers. 13
Financial troubles have continued to burden education. Financial resources available for higher education in the Slovak Republic fell by 50 percent from 1989 to 1994. Much of this decrease was due to inflation; although funding levels remained relatively constant, corrected values show a cut of 30 percent from 1992 to 1993 alone. In addition, because student enrollment has climbed dramatically since the "Velvet Divorce" (perhaps because of the renewed perception of education as a path to success), the funds available per student in 1994 dropped to 38 percent of the 1989 level. Limited finances are also blamed for the continued exodus of employees, 4,077 in 1993-94 alone. 14 Vocational education suffered; companies tried to close down their vocational education programs, arguing that they were unprofitable.
Several educational groups during the "First Step" period proposed reforms, focusing on the principles of educational choice (for example, promoting the creation of private and church-run schools), liberalization of the educational market, and decentralization of authority. 15 Other groups addressed the financial question by proposing market-driven educational policies. Structural adjustment policies came from, among others, the IDEA group, which offered a voucher-type system for privatizing education. Vop_nka responded by saying that "[w]e regard as unacceptable the idea that the free-market principle be introduced into the school system, based on the individual interests of `clients.'" 16 Ultimately Vop_nka was replaced by Petr Pitha in July 1992.
The effects of decentralization, liberalization, and privatization are especially worth considering in these countries. Hartl and Ve_erník argue that the discredited role of a monolithic state has made the "process of decentralization... inescapable." 17 The character that this decentralization will take, however, is another matter:
In practice, however, decentralization often implies a degree of privatization. A distinction must therefore be drawn between countries that decentralize their educational system for increased flexibility in education itself and those where decentralization is primarily a means of reducing the central government's administrative and, especially, financial responsibility for educational expansion and quality. Indeed, in many developing countries decentralization has simply meant fewer funds for education in poorer regions, hence a widening gap in quality between the rich and the poor. 18
Birzea, writing in 1992, agrees with von Kopp that a market approach toward education is risky for a country with low financial reserves. They further warn of nationalism and forms of social unrest that could arise from "the risk of blindly imitating western models." 19 Decentralization without the civic structures to support it also carries the threat of increased political and economic domination of the elites. This situation leads to a widening gap between those in and those out of power as well, as will be discussed below.
The World Bank has also recommended market-driven measures, including financial accountability on the part of schools, as well as greater secondary class size and fees for higher education. The influence of the World Bank is significant because of its position as a symbol of the West's path of modernization, its dominance in development funding, and its reliance on structural adjustment and policies of conditionality in lending.
The World Bank development perspective builds on Fukuyama's liberal ideology of the "end of history." It reflects a neoclassical economic prescriptive and a linear perspective on development that sees the changes in Central and Eastern Europe as a process of "catching up" after four decades of sitting on the sidelines. Rapid modernization is key to minimizing this social lag. Social policy is determined by the goals of reduced inflation and liberalization -- essentially the rules of the market economy. The World Bank takes this argument further by applying liberal economic principles to education. Using "rate of return analysis," which quantifies the educational process, they establish a technocratic model for setting educational policy. Effective education thus becomes a process of determining efficient and measurable inputs and outputs.
This perspective is reinforced in other ways. Economic instructors from the West come to the Czech and Slovak Republics to teach, usually staying for a year, and are often unaware of their particular cultural/economic biases. They typically teach Fukuyama's triumph of liberal economics, "a cookbook solution in the form of certain macroeconomic polities." 20 Because the teachers are presenting economic "laws," the country's particular social and economic conditions are disregarded, the students' experiences are excluded from the discourse, and alternative economic models are not considered.
Others, however, take issue with the inevitability of this social/economic model, arguing that Central and Eastern Europe has not chosen capitalism over communism, but an open society over a closed one. 21 In this way, we are facing not the triumph of one system over another, but the preconditions for pluralism. In contrast to the World Bank's technocratic view of these countries, this argument takes a particularistic view; it is now up to the countries to determine their courses. The challenge is to develop the civil structures that support pluralism. This process of change will span generations, not just a few years of speedy economic reforms. 22
In addition, Birzea suggests that structural adjustment policies, such as those of the World Bank, tend to help richer countries and impoverish poorer ones. Killick concludes from the poor record of the World Bank's structural adjustment policies that successful countries are those that have the mechanisms and willingness to set rational economic policies. The World Bank's conditionality, is in fact "probably counterproductive, because of its negative effect on local ownership." 23 In other words, local institutions are more important than the imposition of rational economic principles for successful transition.
David Apter adds to the criticism of the World Bank-style neoclassical approach. He brings together both modernization and marginalization theories and argues that it is precisely the success of modernization, of increased economic efficiency, that results in increased social overhead and a population that is increasingly marginalized and unemployable in an economy bent on innovation. This situation threatens to destabilize social systems and marginalize those who may have had a place in society, but who now are left without a significant role in the social transformation. At this point "social polarization becomes political polarization" and "one sees in all parts of the world tendencies toward primordial revivalism, zenophobic, often fascist." A "disposition to violence" results from the contradiction between innovation and marginalization. Violence -- a "postmodern phenomenon" -- becomes a postmodern expression of economic exclusion. 24 Social cohesion is threatened. Mat_j_ and R_háková echo this concern:
In these nations, egalitarian ideology, strong redistribution policies, and the corruption of transparent criteria for social and economic rewards have created populations highly sensitive to inequality, particularly its economic dimension. What tolerance there is for inequality would likely disappear without clear evidence that meritocratic and universalistic criteria contribute to economic success. 25
Mat_j_ and R_háková's study shows that education in the Czech Republic is increasingly seen as a "strategy for life success." They use Bourdieu's concept of "human capital" to describe and analyze the change in people's abilities within society. Human capital represents the social ties and knowledge that an individual possesses, which are part of that individual's tools for success. According to Mat_j_ and R_háková, the process of transition involves understanding the shifting valuation of human capital and making the appropriate rational changes in order to maximize this "human capital."
They also measured subjective feelings about standard of living, prestige, deserved earnings, and the creation of "more or less justice." Reactions to questions about these criteria reveal a remarkable split in feelings from 1989 to 1992. In 1989, people's evaluation of these criteria in their lives were very close, regardless of their educational level. By 1992, those with lower levels of education expressed much more pessimistic feelings about their standard of living, prestige, deserved earnings, and justice received than did those with higher levels of education. They found an increasing division of "life success" in relation to educational attainment. This fact raises the possibility of an increasing marginalization of a portion of the population that does not receive more than primary or secondary education.
Divorce -- the Czech and Slovak Republics
The educational scenes in the Czech and Slovak Republics appear to be diverging. Although both follow similar policies of greater choice, liberalization and decentralization, the Czech Republic has followed a more neo-conservative path, the Slovak Republic a more nationalistic one. The Czech Republic, an OECD member since 1995, is looking to its OECD partners and other international organizations for help in revitalizing higher education. The goal of providing alternative and civic education is aided by programs such as those of the Open Society Fund, which support civic education, distance learning projects, alternative teaching methods, and innovative education in the Roma community. 26
The universities are struggling to remake themselves. Pre-revolution university education was marked by a separation of instruction and research. Departments were typically fragmented, scattered among different faculties. Not surprisingly, administration and instructors often resist efforts to coordinate and streamline programs. The Dean of Charles University cites several difficulties in postgraduate work, including "the small size of national science councils" and "the limited international mobility of students and teachers." He looks toward international coordination with universities for exchange, credit transfers, and joint projects. He also views coordination among Central and Eastern European countries as important for maintaining a certain academic and cultural vibrance within a Central and Eastern Europe "landscape." 27 Currently there is often more awareness of what is being done in the West than within the area.
Both the Czech and Slovak Republics are relatively economically secure. They are among the most highly rated of the countries in transition in terms of inflation, liberalization, and growth. 28 Birzea, noting the low percentage of Czechoslovakia's GNP that was allocated to education in 1991, argues that "[t]he least that can be said is that this downward trend contradicts the promise to make education a `priority of transition.'" 29 Yet while levels stayed between 4 and 5 percent between 1980 and 1990, and dipped to a low of 3.5 percent in 1991, levels since then have risen. In the Czech Republic, such levels were 4.6 and 5.8 percent in 1992 and 1993, respectively, and 6.6 and 5.7 percent in Slovakia. 30 It is hard to know exactly what this means for education, but it does appear to support the promise of making education a "priority of transition."
Slovakia is a study in contrasts, with the Czech Republic and within the country. It, too, is looking internationally to build ties and develop its educational system, at least officially. A 1994 government document on education states: "We want to devote attention to the development of international cooperation in the sphere of education, science, and technology." It, too, is pursuing civic education. For example, the Open Society Foundation has been working with elementary school teachers and developing Roma programs, as it is in the Czech Republic. 31 Again, these actions are officially supported by the government:
We will take the necessary steps to ensure an even development of education in areas inhabited by people with diverse mother tongues. We will guarantee the fulfillment of the right to the free choice of the language of instruction. 32
However, the educational climate remains uncertain in Slovakia. The debate in 1992 over the abolition of Trnava University became a bloody political battle. 33 The reemergence of Vladimír Me_iar for the third time as Prime Minister underscores just how unpredictable the climate is. Two years after the policy statement above, Me_iar fanned the flames of Slovak nationalism by stirring resentment against the sizable Hungarian minority. While efforts like those of the Open Society Foundation work to "develop a mosaic of grassroots organizations" and "to mitigate problems which arise from national, ethnic, and other kinds of intolerance," Me_iar, seeing perhaps a threat to his central control over institutions such as education, has acted to make it less hospitable for non-governmental organizations to work in Slovakia. His efforts have led to warnings from the United States and the European Union as well as a visit from Hillary Clinton. 34 It also raises the question of whether a liberal, decentralized policy is inimical to Me_iar's nationalist agenda.
It is hard to generalize about the state of something as far-reaching and difficult to quantify as education. Some patterns do emerge, however. The revolution has not erased the legacy of state socialism. Ferge argues that state socialism dissembled existing social institutions and imposed new mechanisms of social integration -- including education -- that were artificial, not "generated by norms and values based on consensus." What was left were "pseudo-systems or non-systems" that did not reflect the genuine integrative norms of the society. 35 State socialism, then, lives on in the potential for instability caused by poor integration of institutions. Sandi writes that education needs to address the "atomization" in these societies, that "totalitarian regimes, in the quest for uniformity and obedience, have systematically destroyed civil societies." 36 Efforts at decentralization and greater participation are jeopardized by the lack of existing social structures to support them, and may in fact encourage the greater political and economic domination of elites. Even the World Bank recognizes that "often the new coalitions are a regrouping of the same elite: in the formerly communist economies many members of the old nomenklatura have joined and often lead the new private sector." 37 However, while the World Bank encourages a rapid process of reform, Ferge echoes Apter and Dahrendorf in their views that the normative systems necessary for civil society take a long time to develop. 38
This lack of civil society has given rise to an unclear relationship between different social spheres, an integrative blur or void, of which the student protests in 1989 were an expression. Me_iar's recurring presence in politics and his nationalist and ethnic rumblings are further expressions of this situation. Ethnic and nationalist issues remain part of the political discourse and continue to impact educational structures. Considering the increasing gap between those with education and those without it, forms of marginalization, including ethnic marginalization, are issues for education and for social stability. We are perhaps now seeing the deferred social marginalization and disruption that is the legacy of generations of state-imposed structures that dissembled civil social structures. New influ-ences are emerging in this void. Ideologies attempt to define new relationships, yet their meanings in a society in transition is unclear. In light of this, Hartl and Ve_erník wonder:
There is a general belief in economic individualism which is seen as juxtaposed to rigid statism. It is not quite sure if this plea for individualism also includes increasing inequality, widening social distances, and the creation of social barriers. 39
Clearly, "economic individualism" and human capital in the form of education is increasingly valued as a "strategy for success." It is not clear, however, what structuring influences are at work in the development of the educational system. Increasingly, it appears that the liberal market model, which encourages private, decentralized control over institutions and a minimal social safety net, is the rising star in planning -- partly due to the ideological appeal of the West and the financial clout of organizations like the World Bank and IMF. It is not surprising to see echoes of the educational discourse of the West in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Neither should it be surprising to see the market become an increasingly important mechanism in the structuring of education. Although market mechanisms have kept these two economies relatively healthy, education continues to suffer under financial constraints, and the drive toward liberalization and decentralization continues to expose students to the effects of the market.
Footnotes
Note 1: Francis Fukuyama, "Are We at the End of History?," Fortune, January 15, 1990. Back.
Note 2: Botho Von Kopp, "The Eastern European Revolution and Education in Czechoslovakia," Comparative Education Review, February 1992, 104. Back.
Note 3: Petr Mat_j_ and Blanka R_háková, "Education as a Strategy for Life Success in the Postcommunist Transformation: The Case of the Czech Republic," Comparative Education Review, May 1996, 162. Back.
Note 4: The World Bank, World Development Report 1996 (Washington: The World Bank), 201. Back.
Note 5: Ana Maria Sandi, "Why Is It So Difficult? Misconceptions about Eastern European Education in Transition," International Review of Education, November 1992, 630. Back.
Note 6: Jules Peschar and Roel Popping, "Educational Opportunity in Five East European Countries," Comparative Education Review, February 1991, 164-69. Back.
Note 8: "Report on Education in Ethnically Mixed Areas," Narodna Obroda, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service-East Europe (hereafter FBIS-EEU), February 6, 1991, 28. Back.
Note 9: "Slovak Education Minister Meets With Students," Prague domestic service in Czech (1430 GMT Nov 30, 1989), in FBIS-EEU, November 30, 1989, 28. Back.
Note 10: "Havel Receives Student Representatives in Prague," Prague domestic service in Czech (2000 GMT Nov 17, 1990), in FBIS-EEU, November 19, 1990, 34. Back.
Note 11: "Marxism-Leninism Withdrawn From College Course," Prague domestic service in Czech (1430 GMT Nov 30, 1989), in FBIS-EEU, December 1, 1989, 46. Back.
Note 12: Paulina Bren, "Educational Reform in the Czech Republic," RFE/RL Research Report, September 25, 1992, 67-70. Back.
Note 14: Karol Flórián, "The Return of Europe: Short Reports on the Situation of Universities in Central Europe," European Education, Spring 1996, 8. Back.
Note 15: Cezar Birzea, Educational Policies of the Countries in Transition (Strasbourg: Council for Cultural Cooperation, 1994), 64. Back.
Note 17: J. Hartl and J. Vercernik, "Economy, Policy and Welfare in Transition," in Zsuzsa Ferge and Jon Eivind Kolberg, eds., Social Policy in a Changing Europe (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), 172. Back.
Note 18: "Educational Reform: Issues and Trends," International Labour Review (BOU) 134, no. 6 (1995), 770. Back.
Note 20: James Angresano, "The Pedagogy of the Transformation: Economics Education in Central and Eastern Europe," European Education (Spring 1996), 64. Back.
Note 21: Ralf Dahrendorf, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (New York: Random House, 1990), 40; Hartl and Ve_erník, 172. Back.
Note 23: Tony Killick, "Donor Conditionality and the Improvement of Economic Policies." Paper prepared for International Economic Association conference on "The Political Dimension of Economic Growth," San Jose, CA, April 1996, 14. Back.
Note 24: David Apter, Rethinking Development: Modernization, Dependency, and Postmodern Politics (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1987), 37. Back.
Note 25: Mat_j_ and R_háková, 158. Back.
Note 26: Open Society Institute, Building Open Societies: Soros Foundations 1995 Report of Activities (New York: Open Society Institute, 1996), 42. Back.
Note 27: Zdenek Pertold, "The Return of Europe: Short Reports on the Situation of Universities in Central Europe," European Education, Spring 1996, 17. Back.
Note 28: Michael Bruno, Deep Crises and Reform: What Have We Learned? (Washington: The World Bank, 1996), 20. Back.
Note 30: World Bank, 191. Back.
Note 31: Open Society Institute, 89. Back.
Note 32: "`Text' of Policy Statement of Slovak Government," Hospodarské Noviny, April 15, 1994, 7-10, in FBIS-EEU, April 25, 1994, 16. Back.
Note 33: "Council Withdraws University Abolition Bill," Prague CSTK in English (2012 GMT Nov 17, 1992), in FBIS-EEU, November 23, 1992, 21. Back.
Note 34: Tom Hundley, "Slovakia's Shifty Leader Irritates the West," Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1996. Back.
Note 35: Ferge, "Social Policy Regimes and Social Structure: Hypotheses about the Prospects of Social Policy in Central and Eastern Europe," in Ferge and Kolberg, eds., 212. Back.
Note 39: Hartl and Ve_erník, 173. Back.
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