Co-financing of postgraduate students

Background

In the mid-nineties the Council for Higher Education began to prepare the Starting points for the Higher Education Master Plan. A large number of study programmes and a small number of students enrolled made their systemic financing almost impossible, so students had to pay (high) tuition fees. The analysis of post-graduate studies offered by Slovenian universities showed the following weaknesses: the post-graduate studies were too dispersed, with a very small number of students in each institution; the number of contact hours exceeded the maximum allowed; most studies were perceived as the acquisition of positivistic knowledge and only few as an opportunity for development of special ideas and research methods in specific fields. Taking into account the analysis, the Council recommended the development of a new concept of post-graduate studies.

Aims and targets

The Council recommended implementation of financial mechanisms which would increase cooperation among higher education institutions within universities, promote collaboration with research institutes and employers and broad international cooperation. Contents of study programmes should be renewed, credit transfer system introduced and the role of mentors and tutors more precisely defined. The basic aims of the renewal of post-graduate study were to achieve better quality and efficiency as well as an increase in the number of well-trained graduates. Post-graduate degrees should become a requirement for an early start to independent research.

Quantifiable targets were not set.

Strategy and actions

The Ministry of Higher Education, universities and the Slovenian Academy of Science and Art organised several meetings during the period 1997 and 1998. New rules were designed on the content of post-graduate study programmes and their organisation.

Among the most important were the following ones:

The organisation of postgraduate study and research work involves links with other domestic or foreign higher education institutions, research organisations or users;
Higher education institutions are active in the field of international cooperation;
Higher education institutions monitor and assess their work in a planned manner and demonstrate that their postgraduate study and research work is of a high standard;
Master’s study programmes must meet the following conditions:
o  they last two years and contain not more than 450 hours of lectures and seminars, with the student fulfilling at least 25 per cent of his study obligations through individual research work;
o individual research work by students forms part of postgraduate study; the head of a research programme or research and development project financed from the state budget must place in a research group at least one student;
o  they are assessed by means of credit points;
o  they allow the student to select at least 10 per cent of his lectures or seminars from other postgraduate study programmes in the same or other higher education institutions;
o  at least 45 credit points are required in order for a student to advance from the first to the second year;
In a four-year doctoral programme the first two years are conducted according to the rules applying to master’s programmes (excluding the master's thesis); the last two years are taken up with the student’s own individual research work.

In 1998 The Government of the Republic of Slovenia adopted Resolution on the co-financing of postgraduate study in which the above mentioned rules were resumed as a condition for receiving co-financing from the state budget. The highest tuition fee for an individual year of post-graduate study financed from the state budget has been fixed to 1960 EURO.

Monitoring and evaluation

Universities and independent higher education institutions must present their annual self-evaluation report on post-graduate study programmes publicly and discuss it with research organisations and users, students’ representatives, financing bodies and the general public. Opinions and recommendations shall be formulated alongside the discussion; these are then taken into consideration by the higher education institutions in their work and by the ministry in the financing process.

Funding/Cost effectiveness

Sustainability/Transferability

Outcomes/impacts

Achievements

Success factors

Unintended impacts

Some higher education institutions do not agree that the tuition fee is fixed, some are convinced that it is too low. Thus, a small number of institutions never apply to public tender.

Strengths and weaknesses

The main strengths or results achieved are:

The number of students increased significantly;
New links between higher education and research institutions were established, collaboration of academic staff and researchers increased;
Study programmes were renewed; ECTS system has been introduced in all programmes that are co-financed;
It is used both as a transfer and accumulation system; doctoral study without the intermediate step is gradually increasing.