BiH has been unable to pass a unified law on higher education. It is not as if lawmakers don”t understand the problem. Academics are well represented in the top political ranks of the country and of both entities.
In a CIN-sponsored focus group, leading employers and business officials in BiH talk about the quality of the workforce universities are turning out and about how they might change university education.
Polls and surveys show that students believe over-whelmingly that their universities are dishonest places where students must pay to pass exams and money-hungry professors can get away with working two or more jobs. A curious acceptance and silence about wrong-doing may prevent improvements many want to see.
After years of war, poor funding and chronic political infighting, universities in BiH have fallen behind those in much of the rest of Europe.BiH students in public faculties typically are taught in the most out-moded way: listening to a professor lecture and taking notes. Practical experience is rare. Equipment is old, technology spotty and libraries empty. There is little impetus for change.
Reporters from the Center for Investigative Reporting compiled the following list of recommen-dations for improving higher education in Bosnia and Herzegovina from reports, interviews and the experiences of some schools experimenting with change discovered while researching “Universities Failing the Grade.”
BiH universities have degenerated into some of the worst in Europe, in large part because officials support 13 education agencies. Croatia spends six times more per student than the 500 euros a year BiH spends but, students, alumni and business also don’t contribute their fair shares. Lack of money has kept schools from recovering from war damage or updating their libraries and laboratories.
CIN attends a late-night Friday lecture with dozens of bored students for a look at teaching and learning in BiH universities.
Two years after Bosnia and Herzegovina joined a European-wide effort to reform, improve and unify universities, the country ranks dead-last among 45 participants in reaching that goal. Higher education in BiH remains under-funded and over politicized. Professors too often teach boring classes and do little research. Students increasingly are moving to private colleges – or to classes in other countries.
As the War Crimes Chamber in the State Court of BiH gears up to prosecute accused war criminals, lawyers whose job it is to defend the accused say the system is not fair. They say they are hampered by inadequate resources, poor pay and legal restrictions that have driven away many lawyers. The problems could mean that the fair trials will never happen in the chamber that has yet to gain the trust of the public.
It took years of effort, but at a contentious July meeting in South Africa, Mostar’s Old Town was finally added to the United Nation’s World Heritage List, giving it status as a unique cultural place on the globe.
A lifeline into and out of a city under siege a decade ago, a tunnel beneath the Sarajevo airport forgotten by residents and snubbed by officials as a historical memorial, has nevertheless become an unlikely magnet for tourists.
The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIN) in Sarajevo is unique in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the first organization of its kind to be established in Balkans. CIN is dedicated to investigative reporting, aimed toward providing fair and unbiased information, based on evidences and solid proof, to BiH citizens who need to make educated decisions.
Downloading of the content of the CIN is permitted with the mandatory reference to the source at www.cin.ba.
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