During these turbulent years, it went from fast exploration of the new opportunities arisen in earlier 90th to return to the higher education system of its past.
This has been reflected in irreversible for now changes in legal framework that eliminated the fundamental European academic values, very slow higher education internationalization and the return to higher education institutions administrative control along with making the universities an instrument in reaching political goals.
The latter is very visible particularly after the controversial Presidential election in December 2011 where the higher education institutions have become the tool in eliminating progressively thinking societal cluster oriented towards democratic values and Belarus internationalization. In 2009, during another thaw time in Belarusian and Western relations, Belarus finally decided to join Bologna and become a part of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and proceeded to revising the legal framework and reshaping the system itself in accordance with the state vision, political goals and its own economic needs, what basically meant a surrender to current political situation in a country where the higher education has been viewed as an instrument in pursuing government political agenda through ideological and administrative control over its development and constant suppression of its opponents. In spite of this ‘good-will’ motion to join EHEA, Belarus concentrated on fitting what it has to admission criteria keeping untouched the tightening higher education institutions administrative control and leaving the fundamental values of European higher education: academic freedom and institutional autonomy outside although, the number of steps has been made towards introducing international standards into the higher education system without actual reforms but simply putting it on what exists. This was best described by Alexander Radkov, the Minister of Education at that time and currently the Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, from April 2009 where he openly reconfirmed the government position on Bologna accession by saying: “We are working on being officially admitted to Bologna because we feel that this won’t affect educational structure, content and its ideology.” As a result, the higher education institutions’ management, quality of learning and teaching assessment, programs’ structure and curriculum remain unchanged though are claimed to be in full compliance with the EHEA requirements. I would call this that the higher education system has nothing to do with actual Bologna accession process but this is the government who decides and goes forward what right and what is not for the country’s higher education system development. The coming in force of new Educational Code raised even more concerns and uncertainty over the higher education future among academia and society. 2-cycle educational model is legally sealed and the mobility made as a part of the educational process but the new legal framework doesn’t have a single reference to fundamental values that form the basis for continuous higher education development in Europe as well as reinstalls even more tight administrative and ideological control over it. The higher education institutions also remain concerned about the actual implementation mechanisms, as nothing effective has been in place to adhere to those, so-called by the officials, technical aspects. The main concern is that the current legal framework doesn’t acknowledged the fundamental European higher education principles sealed in Bologna declaration and being laid in the Magna Charta Universitatum in 1998 that leaves the further Belarusian higher education development questionable as well as the government motives in joining EHEA thus making the higher education institutions accountable to no one but to the government. It is also thought that the decision to join Bologna driven by pure political agenda, economic and financial crisis in a country. The officials seems to be eager to be a part of EHEA viewing it as the easy way to bring foreign currency in and getting the political setting officially acknowledged without any consideration to actual quality of education and the state of the higher education system. This leaves us with the legitimate question where this brings Belarusian higher education and what the next phase is there for it. It is obvious that without respect to the fundamental European higher education values the Belarusian higher education doesn’t have prosperous future as the full EHEA member. The system is simply not ready for that though the official position is that the country’s higher education system is fully ready and is in compliance with all the requirements to be admitted followed by the officially submitting the application to Bologna Secretariat in November 2011 omitting the facts that the fundamental EHEA principles are nowhere there. The academic community, society and educational experts do not agree with such firm statement that resulted in establishing the Independent Bologna Committee to assess the actual state of Belarusian higher education and the country’s respect to values on which the European higher education is built. They work is resulted in alternative report submitted to the Secretariat ahead of the decision on Belarus. The paper underlines that Belarus is not ready to become a full EHEA member unless it commits itself to complex higher education system reforms beginning from the small but indispensable steps: reinstalling higher education accountability to academic community through returning to the free and democratic Rectors’ election and ending the use of higher education institutions as an instrument in political games against the opponents of current political situation. Such firm academic community position doesn’t undermine the need in being a part of EHEA in all means. The Belarus is a European country and has all rights to be a part of its development. We believe that gradual admission to Bologna is the best-case scenario for Belarus and its higher education system development which will allow EHEA to offer the ‘Road map for reforms’ and pending on its implementation to make a final decision at the next Summit. On the other hand, we are aware that this might be politically sensitive matter having in mind that previous attempts to pressure Belarusian government were not very successful. Certainly, there are other options that may come out of the European Ministers of Education Summit in April 2012 when they make the decision about Belarus admission. One of them is that Belarus would be admitted which would undermine what Bologna and EHEA stands for and jeopardize the reforms’ possibilities in Belarus. The other one is Belarus application rejection, which should be considered an unlikely turn knowing that in this case Belarus will completely shut itself down once again and the higher education stakeholders and public are the ones who would suffer from such decision. However, this will be up to the Ministers to make their decision based on the information received from all interested parties but it is important to keep in mind that in spite of admission or not the cooperation between Belarusian and European universities should continue to be strengthen. Yuliya Lakina