THE LAW OF HIGHER EDUCATION - EUROPEAN AND INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

1. THE LAW OF HIGHER EDUCATION - EUROPEAN AND INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT Dennis Farrington Ljubljana, March 2014

2. My introduction • Civil servant 1972-1981, mainly in Northern Ireland • University administration UK 1981-2002 • Working for SEEU since 2002 • Expert, Council of Europe etc since 1994 • SEEU project since 2000 • 14 countries, major projects Kosovo, BiH, etc • Recent work Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine (current)

3. H.E. LAW BASICS 1 • Council of Europe LRP Template 1998/2000 as amended over time • EUA Trends Reports • New issues since 2000: • Bologna Process • Response to new technologies • Academic freedom and autonomy in the ‘wired world’ • Managed HEIs v collegially- run HEIs

4. BASICS 2 • Ensuring cost-effective use of public funds in the new economic reality • Using external expertise in governance • Optimising the student experience – less emphasis on theory, more on competences • Facilitating flexible HR policies • Diversifying income streams • Commercialisation and exploitation of research

5. BASICS 3 • Risk assessment and audit • Key Performance Indicators • Depoliticising public higher education • Dealing with reality: private and public-private institutions including branches of foreign institutions

6. SO: • Any new higher education law in any country has to be simple, flexible, and progressive • Maximum autonomy has to be given to well-governed, well-managed institutions, perhaps through framework agreements • Public funding for highly specialised courses (medicine etc) can continue to be based on state estimates, otherwise the market decides

7. RECENT WORK • Armenia: improving autonomy, modernisation of Laws of 1999 and 2004 • Moldova: modernisation of Education Code dated 1995-1999 • Ukraine: moving from ‘Soviet’ system to modern European system, modernisation of Laws 1996-2002

8. THE UNITED KINGDOM • Four increasingly diverse higher education systems (E, S, W, NI) • About 160 universities, all technically private corporations, not all publicly-funded • With at least five different types of foundation: • Royal Charter/Papal Bull/sometimes confirmed by statute (eg Universities of Oxford & Cambridge Act 1571, older Scottish Universities: Acts of Union 1707) • Acts of Parliament, public and private • Higher education corporations • Companies limited by guarantee (non-profit) • Companies limited by shares (usually for profit) • Trusts/religious foundations, e.g. two recent RC universities

9. CONCENTRATE ON ENGLAND • New types of providers granted power to award degrees (private companies, further education colleges) and ‘university’ does not necessarily have to award PhD (contrast with Scotland) • Most funding for teaching now comes via the Student Loans Company, not the Funding Council • Difficult, actually unlawful, under existing legislation (1992, as amended) to regulate activity not funded by the Funding Council • New concentration on consumers, value for money

10. PROPOSALS FOR NEW LAW • ‘Level playing field’ for all types of providers • Dealing more effectively with ‘consumers’ • Allowing for new organisational forms • New regulatory framework not reliant on source of funding • But probably not saying anything about the Bologna Process or sorting out the wide variety of qualifications and nomenclature

11. Q & A • Thanks!