Talk:Open and Distance Education/Cultural influences in online learning/Regional Differentiation of Cultural Differences

Education in Eastern and Central Europe: Rethinking Post-Socialism in the Context of Globalization

Most of system was changed in eastern and central Europe and Soviet Union after collapsing socialistic bloc in 1989 even political borders were remarked on global political map. European union enriched with ten more other countries such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia and many other countries became semi or full authoritarian countries like Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. In a way these acts were taken as the triumph of West they decided it would replace socialist system into Western capitalism. From this perspective, the post-socialist region was definite as a further movement towards the West, progress, and modernity. These changes brought a new idea about education as well, education system start being considered as global education such as student-centered learning, outcomes-based education, curriculum standardization, privatization, or decentralization—and then tracing its complicated trajectory locally. Obviously it was difficult and problematic to the countries as the post-socialistic transformation. According Burawoy “Using singular Western model will be for post-socialist transformations inevitably results in losing “sight of alternatives, whether alternative capitalisms, alternative socialisms, or other utopias that offer novel lenses through which to interpret the present and the past, as well as future.” Moreover, mentioned alternatives were much sever in reality on the other hand it sounds good “theorizing post-socialist transformations in the globalization context” even after bloc collapsed education system in post social countries left open in uncertainty. If look at history of European countries education traditions shaped throughout areas meanwhile implementation of “Western model” in post socialist countries were problematic and Russian traditions were competing with Muslim, Baltic and Turkic and other influences.

Educational Achievements under Socialism

The achievements in Soviet time was not impressive mainly was introduced a broad measure of social equality and mass educational opportunity, still in the period of Stalin were shown one of the highest level of production of strong state support and massive public investment meant that Soviet universities witnessed some of the most rapid and truly impressive quantitative and institutional growth in the world. And from 1900 the Soviet education start being changed from domestic influence to comprehensive systems of higher education and research in the period of after war. By the end of the Brezhnev era (1966–1982), education policymakers in Southeast/Central Europe and the Soviet Union were aware that their schools were in trouble. The quality of basic education, research, and development steadily declined, not only in comparison with Western Europe but also in the context of the goals and expectations of the education policymakers in each individual country. For instance 7 percent of GDP were used for education in 1970 then it start decreasing to 4 percent in 1980. According to statistic approximately 21 percent schoolchildren went to schools without central heating system, 30 percent lacking indoor plumbing and 40 percent without access to sport complex.

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CMAP "Southeastern/Central Europe and Russia before and after 1918"

EDUCATION REFORM DURING THE POST-SOCIALIST “TRANSFORMATION”

After 1989 there were needs to reform in education system they wanted to create something new out of  tightly integrated and highly standardized system in the Soviet period, reason reforms about perestroika (economic restructuring), glasnost (openness), and demokratizatsiia (democratization) did not prove themselves. On the other hand because of these people got more idea about democracy especially in lower local level still there were seen severe ethnical pressure and religious conflicts which supported privatization for forming of legitimacy through ethno-territorial nationalism. Meanwhile education was by the door of crisis condition and it was brightened with titles such as A Generation at Risk: Children in the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (Asian Development Bank, 1998), Youth in Central Asia: Losing the New Generation (International Crisis Group, 2003), or Public Spending on Education in the CIS-7 Countries: The Hidden Crisis (World Bank, 2003). Even The World bank and Asian Development Bank also announced how weakened education system and these all brought to conclusion that post socialist educational reforms were no reliable, weak and highly corrupted. Obviously, crisis brought as normal, dreamed example what was called western model which was “tolerant, efficient, active, developed, organized, and democratic” and then immediately contrasted to “intolerant, corrupt, passive, underdeveloped, chaotic, and undemocratic’ in post socialist countries. Likewise, appeared “post socialist package” which traveled along the countries of Post socialist countries. This package was famous being student-centered learning, decentralization, privatization, standardization of student assessment, liberalization of textbook publishing and it was another example how Western capitalism start growing rapidly.

The Meanings of Decentralization in Centralized States

The reform of decentralization was learned and researched attentively by side centralized education system members. The decentralization was about “restoring the democratic political and professional legitimacy of decision-making”. In fact, this was ideal to approach western education which means all post socialist could step ahead to western democracy. As a one of example could be seen Romania’s education system after having decentralized transformation in short time could pass primitive steps and soon became “compatible with European standards”. And this relationship between Southeast/Central Europe and the ex-Soviet Union countries were supported by the World bank and Asian Development bank because it was more efficient rather than centralized corrupted system. In reality reforms were away from comprehensive sector strategy it was more fragmented implementation. Such as Romania and Macedonia followed partial, Macedonia and Croatia more emphasized on decentralization and Serbia decided to concentrate on decentralized curriculum. Kazakistan prioritized decentralized teaching still centralized control over curriculum. In Russia, too, curriculum decentralization reform, which initially granted equal responsibility for curriculum development to the federal government, regional authorities, and the schools, was partially reversed. Still results are not so clearly some countries somewhat can be heard it was effective and influenced positively by increasing efficiency, but according Mincu it is curing and almost socialist education became myth to the young generation.

The Meanings of Privatization in Public Education Decentralization helped to grow an idea of privatization and it gave options for customers because of what were found a lot of nonreligious, religious private schools. It was mentioned 7-8 percent school were private in Georgia and Hungary, 4–6 percent in Albania, Estonia, Slovakia, and Mongolia; and below 1 percent in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan during the 2009/2010 academic year. In Southeast/Western Europe private schools in Pollan were up to 50 percent subsidized by government. In Russia, privatized schools “only some are genuinely independent, while others are firmly linked to the governmental and business structures through networks of formal and informal connections.” While being modest in scale until the early 1990s, private tutoring has become a vast enterprise after the collapse of the socialist bloc. 64 percent of population received education in secondary school in Southeast/Western Europe and former Soviet Union countries. On the other hand, however, private tutoring has brought a number of negative consequences, such as exacerbating social inequities, distorting curricula, inviting corruption, and depriving the state of tax revenues.

CONCLUSION After revolution in 1989 still education was left unsettled still equity egalitarianism have decreased but fascination of Western model kept living. More importantly, the interaction of the socialist and post-socialist histories with the Western reform projects—whether decentralization, privatization, multiculturalism, or global civil society—has resulted in mixed, often contradictory outcomes. Building environment of privatization in southeast/central Europe and the former Soviet Union emerged more options still showed contradictory effect. Of course it became extra earning and learning centered system in post socialist countries. Karpov and Lisovskaya confirms that as far as governmental education start transformation in test system for enrollment learners to increase efficiency began learning privately on the other hand “western model” was not quite western since beginning. So, all these unsettlement and uncertainties became post-socialist countries in field of research and testing different system of education rather than already forming neoliberal polices and practices. Still post socialism living under hegemony of Western model than one Socialist did.