EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
The case of "priority" majors
About a month ago, the Ministry of Education and Science announced a reform in the financing of student scholarships with European funds under the operational program "Science and Education for Smart Growth". According to this reform, from now on, student specialties are divided into "priority" and "non-priority" and only students studying in the first category of specialties are entitled to receive scholarships for success financed with European money. Priority is given to those specialties in which there is a shortage of personnel and the goal of the changes is to create a higher financial incentive for students to enroll in these specialties and thus fill the shortage. The response from students was mostly negative and protests were even organized, including the National Representation of Student Councils (NPSS) which strongly opposed it.
In response, the Minister of Education Meglena Kuneva agreed to negotiations with the NPSS and a week ago it was ultimately decided that the reform would remain and students in non-priority majors would not be able to receive European funding. Kuneva's decision also had a compromise element - students in non-priority majors would continue to receive scholarships for success, which, however, would be financed with money from the state budget. Not only that, but the amount of the scholarships themselves would be increased by 20 percent, with plans to provide an additional 1 million leva for scholarships this year and another 3 million next year. In addition, the NPSS is insisting that scholarships be increased by an additional 10% in the period 2018-2020.
Currently, the budget forecasts of the Council of Ministers do not foresee an increase in money for education, and therefore it is still unclear where these millions will come from. Thus, the notorious reform of the Ministry of Education and Science has become yet another additional expense invented before it is known where the revenues necessary for its financing will come from.
Minister Kuneva's compromise with the National Council of Higher Education and Science (NPSS) actually largely renders the reform itself meaningless. However, its main idea was to reduce scholarships in non-priority specialties and use the saved money to increase scholarships in priority ones. The purpose of this restructuring of scholarships is to create greater financial incentives for students to apply in priority disciplines, in which there is an acute shortage of personnel, instead of in non-priority ones where there is a relative surplus. Now, however, after the negotiations between the Ministry of Education and Science and the National Council of Higher Education and Science (NPSS), it appears that not only will scholarships in non-priority specialties not be reduced, but they will also be increased! The initially sought effect of the reform will be largely (if not completely) neutralized.
Whether the reform itself, as initially proposed, is adequate is another matter entirely. The factors that contribute to the lack of staff and interest in the priority specialties in question are many, and this problem will certainly not be solved by such a set of measures alone. Namely, pouring money into specialties in which there is a lack of staff will not
In the end, it turns out that the Ministry of Education itself is not clear about what the real purpose of the reform is. First, it supposedly wants to create a financial incentive for students to apply for the so-called "priority" majors, and then it agrees to a compromise with the National Council of Higher Education, which will largely neutralize the effect of the reform in question. And on top of that, from now on, several million additional from the state budget will go to student scholarships - an expense that was not there before. And this new expense appears in a period during which the state budget suffers from chronic deficits year after year.
What do scholarships subsidize?
The whole incident is a good reason to think about what function student scholarships actually serve and who needs them? In theory, the main goals of achievement scholarships are to provide a financial incentive for students to study harder and perhaps, to the extent possible, to provide some financial support for those students who are in a difficult financial situation.
To some extent, however, the existence of such scholarships distorts the incentives for learning. The goal of education should not be high grades themselves, but the acquisition of quality skills that are in demand on the labor market. Grades and education in general are a means, not an end in themselves. The goal is the acquisition of quality knowledge and, subsequently, good professional realization thanks to this knowledge. The best possible reward for the effort that a student has put into his education is finding a job in his specialty.
However, with merit scholarships, there is a danger that learning becomes an end in itself because the student is paid for it. There is a danger that being a student becomes a profession in itself, especially if merit scholarships are comparable in starting salaries in the sector you are aiming for. Scholarships in themselves are of course not a bad thing – there is nothing wrong with having financial incentives for achieving good success in higher education. However, the ultimate goal and main incentive should always be professional fulfillment.
If high scholarships are the only thing that incentivizes students to study hard, this is a clear sign that there are serious problems and imbalances either in the education system or in the labor market or in both. These problems will certainly not be solved by raising student scholarships, quite the opposite.
Employers in Bulgaria are experiencing a shortage of staff, although the unemployment rate is still around 10%. This means that there is a mismatch between the skills that employers need and the skills of the unemployed. Many of these unemployed are of course current or recent graduates, meaning that the skills they have do not match the requirements of employers. As a result, many students from certain majors cannot find work, and this fact leads to fewer and fewer of them applying, which subsequently leads to a shortage of staff. To solve this problem, higher education must be fundamentally reformed and its quality improved in order to achieve a match between the skills acquired by students and the skills sought by employers.
NPSS and profession student
That is why the one-sided lobbying for increasing scholarships by the NPSS is extremely disappointing. If the NPSS were really concerned about the future of students in Bulgaria, they should be lobbying for the exact opposite, or at least for a comprehensive reform to improve the quality of higher education. Instead, in typical state-bureaucratic style, they are simply asking the NPSS to pour more and more money into student scholarships, as if turning being a student into a profession would solve the fundamental problem.
Of course, when it comes to the NPSS as an organization, “student profession” actually best describes what its members do. Among the members of the board, the NPSS receives government funding equal to 0.03% of the budget allocated to education, so it is not a big surprise that they think like typical government bureaucrats (or people on a budget feeder). The main goal of any bureaucrat is always to expand funding for the sector and department in which they work, and the NPSS are no exception to this rule.
After the whole fiasco that unfolded around scholarships, one thing is certain. Neither the Ministry of Education nor the National Council of Higher Education have any idea what our higher education actually needs. Not higher scholarships and aimless pouring of money into students, but a fundamental reform that would improve its quality. Unfortunately, however, it seems that neither the Ministry of Education nor the National Council of Higher Education have any desire or incentive to work in this direction.
