By IPS Correspondents
Feb 7 2002 (IPS)

Higher education in Lithuania will go through bold new changes next year.

The changes that bring a socialist touch to the education system are due to go in even though the President and the Prime Minister oppose them.

The Lithuanian Parliament passed a series of controversial amendments to the law on higher education in December that establish a flat tuition fee for all schools in the country as of January 2003. The changes also bring increased state control over universities.

The law had a rough ride through the parliament, leading to disputes within the leading party of the governing coalition.

President Valdas Adamkus refused to sign the law, but he balked at using his veto, saying he did not want to provoke a clash with the legislators. The law was eventually signed on January 8 by parliament chairman Arturas Paulauskas.

Among the most controversial amendments is a maximum tuition fee of 125 dollars a semester for all students, regardless of the school they attend and what they study.

But day students with the top half grades and evening students with the top one-third of grades in their class will pay no tuition fees at all. Those who must pay will be eligible for 15 to 20-year loans on favourable conditions.

Critics of the amendments, the President among them, say the amendments impinge on the autonomy of schools and give the state too much authority.

Lithuania’s universities were earlier permitted to set their own fees based on the real cost of admitting students. That cost averaged about 1250 dollars a year for each student.

Opponents say the changes will give the Education Ministry influence over all administrative decisions relating to tuition fees.

Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas argued that “the government lacks the resources necessary to implement the amendments.” He said the changes will entail large subsidies to cover the cost of students exempt from tuition fees.

“The flat fee is far lower than the actual cost of putting a student through the school system,” Brazauskas said.

Brazauskas asked the President to use his veto to send the draft amendments back to parliament. That provoked objections from members of the Prime Minister’s own Social Democratic Party. One party deputy declared that if the President were to veto the law, it would take parliament 40 minutes to override the veto.

President Adamkus said that “the draft amendments contained evident flaws” and suggested the creation of a special working group to examine the proposed changes. The parliament rejected that proposal too.

Supporters of the new amendments argue that they will help young people from poor families, for whom certain schools and areas of study have been too expensive until now. The previous law did provide for loans, but many students avoided them because the conditions seemed too tough.

They also argue that the changes offer performance-based incentives throughout the course of a student’s education. Previously, the state gave financial support to students according to their entrance-exam grades but did not take later results into account.

Supporters of the changes also point out that the old system encouraged state universities to pay more attention to subjects such as economics, law, and business because they attract more students and therefore earn more money. Disciplines such as physics, biophysics, and information technology lost out, they say.

Mikas Vengris, a young physicist at Vilnius University argued that the ” new system of higher education is more socially balanced, more supportive of the basic sciences, and more related to Western higher education financing systems.”

Basic sciences and high-tech specialties are important to Lithuania’s future, he said.

“State universities should be a tool for the government to implement higher education policy,” Vengris said.

“State universities should act differently from profit-making private universities.”

Parliamentary deputy Rolandas Pavilionis, who is former rector of Vilnius University, argued that the new amendments “will make higher education accessible to more levels of society.”

His arguments are backed by a recently released report on Lithuania by the United Nations Development Programme, which stressed that the country’s education policy has been a major problem for young people.

The report urged the government “to focus on resolving the difference between education opportunities available to young people in rural and urban areas.”

But it remains to be seen how the Education Ministry and the universities will implement the changes.

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