Quality In Higher Education: Without Information, There Is No (Effective) Management

In the Country-specific Recommendations from June 2012, the Council called on the Czech government to make better use of human capital and create innovation-based growth.

The Czech Republic was invited to establish a transparent and clearly defined system of quality assessment in higher education and research institutions and also to ensure sustainable funding interlinked with results of quality assessment. In the Czech Republic, tertiary education encounters decline in quality and increase in the number of master ́s graduates in the recent years. These reasons stand behind the recast of the Czech Higher Education Act. “The way towards improving the quality of higher education leads primarily through better information about quality of courses, transparency of the evaluation process and improved management of universities and quality of academia staff”, agreed speakers at the CEBRE debate organized in Prague on 18th December 2012. Information on quality of universities and various programmes should be available online on a single web page, which would help students to better orientate in the maze of studying programmes. Christele Duvieusart, European Commission ́s expert responsible for analysis of national education systems both in the Czech and Slovak Republic, noted that the changes in quality of tertiary education under preparation in the Czech Republic seem to go in the right direction and are in line with the Council recommendations from June 2012.

Karolína Gondková, Director of Department of Higher Education of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, added that the changing rules should set the ground for creation of profiles of individual universities by increasing their autonomy and accountability, setting up transparent funding rules and reducing administrative burden. Miloš Rathouský from the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic, who stressed that universities need to focus more on the practical side of studying programmes and employability of student on the labour market, concluded the debate.