Comparing Higher Education Planning Approaches in Western and Eastern Europe

Abstract

It is generally recognised that planning of education, and especially of higher education, is a complex and often imperfect exercise the very vulnerability of which prompts an enquiry into its basic rationale. Behind the planning of higher education lies, first of all, the cost factor. Although in comparison to primary or secondary education the 'higher' sector is smaller in absolute terms (enrolments, institutions, staff numbers, etc.), it is much more costly when viewed on a 'per student' or 'per teacher' basis. When the free-market economy Western European nations are examined alongside the centrally planned Eastern European countries inspired by the Marxist-Leninist political doctrine, it is in fact possible to observe a similar pattern of expenditure growth throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, even though rates are slightly lower in the East (Cerych et al., 1981). And the force of this cost factor has been further fueled by the drive towards greater accountability and efficiency characteristic of the first half of the 1 980s. The second incentive to planning in higher education is in the szze of its institutions. Many of these are large-scale concerns often bringing together over 10,000 people, whether as students or staff, in a single establishment bound to the commitment of considerable resources over a long period. Here, clearly, there is a strong case for an initial plan which, almost regardless of whether higher education is dependent on State funding, often has to be formulated before any allocation or even discussion of such funding can occur. This point applies with special force, moreover, when institutions are forced to operate in a climate of austerity, as in recent years, rather than with an eye to expansion and growth. Considered by many to be especially important as a further argument for planning is a third element, namely the present-day rate of social and technological change which, it is claimed, has increased the importance of the aims and operation of higher education as a factor in social development, and thus the need for a more rational programming of its activity, investment and expenditure. The foregoing introductory considerations are invariably woven into the pattern of concerns governing ongoing relations between higher education and the polity, particularly where system-level problems are at issue. At this level, since the 1960s, the