It is a question of finding such principles and readiness to follow them.

Independent educational analyst-consultant Yuriy Fedorchenko reflects on the need and principles of changes in the personnel policy of higher education institutions.

The vast majority of teachers at Ukrainian universities reach the peak of their scientific and pedagogical work by the age of 35-40, then in the conditions of an inefficient model of personnel policy in higher education there is a process of decline and stagnation in their work … It is precisely the model of personnel policy that is implemented in higher education, and the approaches, guidelines and practices associated with such a model.

The current model of personnel policy in higher education can be considered as static, which is characterized by a focus on preserving and preserving established practices, forms and systems of degrees and academic titles. It continues to promote a spirit of secrecy and conformism, low teacher mobility and backrooming in higher education.

The static model of personnel policy in higher education determines the practice in which a higher education teacher does not make adequate efforts throughout his academic career to achieve maximum results. Achieving at a certain stage of the academic career of the relevant scientific degree and academic title allows the teacher to further only simulate the work of obtaining qualitative new results in scientific and pedagogical work.

The static model of personnel policy in higher education is determined by the focus on finding the completeness of the requirements for applicants for academic titles and degrees. The change over time of such requirements does not affect the assessment and perception of titles and degrees obtained at different times. Documents on academic titles and scientific degrees are considered in the static model as self-sufficient and unchanging values. It is their presence that is the determining factor in resolving the relevant personnel issues in higher education.

Under this model, the high school teacher is not so much an active subject of action, as a passive recipient. As a rule, by the age of 40, a high school teacher loses the desire to actively act as an independent subject, in fact agreeing only to act as an instrument of action. The best way to behave in a static model of personnel policy is to be passive and find a compromise with existing practices. That is why the typical norm of behavior of a high school teacher is adaptation.

It is difficult to call the current personnel policy in higher education successful. Its inefficiency is due to several reasons, among which are the lack of strategy for the development and reform of higher education and inadequate definition of personnel policy objectives.

On the reasons for ineffective personnel policy in higher education

1. The lack of a strategy for the development and reform of higher education is a determining factor and the main reason for ineffective personnel policy in the domestic higher education in the last few decades. Decisions concerning personnel policy in higher education are made in isolation from the development of a system of quality assurance in higher education. It is in the context of the development of the latter that personnel policy in higher education should be determined. However, this is not happening. As a result, the possibility of effective implementation of personnel policy is lost, because it seems to exist in itself.

The strategy for the development and reform of higher education should be aimed at building a national system whose institutional actors would be able to work together to ensure the quality of higher education. Such a system necessarily provides for appropriate personnel policy as its component. In other words, without the development of a national system for quality assurance in higher education, any decisions on personnel policy in higher education will be ineffective, half-hearted and contradictory. They will express the whims of individuals and groups rather than be components and consequences of a well-thought-out personnel policy in higher education.

Unfortunately, the situation with regard to personnel policy in higher education has been steadily deteriorating since 2014, as changes are taking place on the basis of the eclectic Law on Higher Education and in the context of the actual blocking of the development of higher education quality assurance system. Instead of building such a system and its institutional actors, the functions of regulators and guarantors of the quality of higher education are outsourced, which for some reason is seen as a step towards integration into European structures. It is worth recalling that only the already developed national system of quality assurance in higher education can be integrated into the pan-European system.

2. Wrong principles underlying personnel policy in higher education lead to inadequate definition of personnel policy objectives in higher education. Inadequate definition of personnel policy tasks is the second main reason for its inefficiency.

In fact, personnel policy in higher education is reduced to the desire to preserve the status quo. The new requirements for research and teaching staff of higher education institutions are not aimed at qualitative changes, but at maintaining the current personnel policy. Even the approach itself remains unchanged, the state (MES) imposes appropriate “Procedures” and tries to maintain control over their observance. At the same time, the very possibility of the effectiveness of such control is not questioned. Formal requirements for research and teaching staff (potential associate professors and professors) are reduced to the provision of an appropriate list of certificates, which inevitably leads to attempts by university teachers to minimize the time and effort to obtain relevant certificates. The financial capacity of a potential associate professor or professor becomes a determining factor in assigning a scientific title and holding a relevant position. It is the state that provokes such a situation, thereby contributing to corruption in the higher education system.

Thus, in fact, the current personnel policy in higher education is reduced to finding the optimal list of requirements for the main subject of the educational process – the teacher. We have a situation in which they are looking for the best solution with the wrong approach. The optimal list of requirements for a research and teaching staff (potential associate professor or professor), which is determined at the level of central executive bodies, is in principle impossible. In other words, it is an inadequate definition of the task in the field of personnel policy in higher education.

3. We must not ignore the fact that today we have to pursue a personnel policy in the face of a constant reduction in the number of research and teaching staff in universities and the prospect of closing a significant number of higher education institutions. The lack of an effective personnel policy in higher education leads to the fact that smart and unscrupulous teachers are more likely to stay in higher education than professional and responsible teachers. This perspective is due to the lack of proper monitoring of the implementation of personnel policy in higher education institutions at the level of the quality assurance system of higher education. In itself, the reduction in my lab report writing the number of research and teaching staff would not be so tragic if it did not occur against the background of the degradation of higher education, which is caused by the lack of a real strategy for the development of higher education for many years.

Today, first of all, it is necessary to adequately define the main task in the field of personnel policy in higher education. And this involves defining new principles on which it should be built. It is a question of finding such principles and readiness to follow them.

About new principles of personnel policy in higher education

It seems that there are three new principles, or approaches, that should underlie the new personnel policy in higher education. Each such principle is a direct opposition to a certain principle (approach), which today, as a rule, is not consciously the basis of the current personnel policy in higher education.

First, the principle of maximum confidence in the potential of the higher education institution and the teacher. Such a principle must be contrasted with paternalism, which today still largely determines the scope of higher education and the nature of the relationship between the state and higher education institutions. The principle of trust provides for the transfer to the sphere of responsibility of higher education institutions of the right to make any final decisions on personnel issues. The state should waive the right to propose any “Procedures” and “Regulations” concerning personnel policy. The state must renounce the petty guardianship of the teacher’s person, guardianship that involves instructing the latter at every step what and how he should do. At the same time, the principle of maximum trust does not mean giving individual universities the opportunity to abuse and neglect the issue of ensuring the quality of education. The practice of effective and continuous monitoring of university activities within the national system of quality assurance in higher education and the relevant practice of distribution based on monitoring of budget funding between universities should be a reliable guarantee against abuse. Secondly, the principle of reasonable sufficiency, or minimalism. This principle should be contrasted with the current approach, which aims to maintain a hierarchical structure in higher education, its levels and barriers, the overcoming of which is due to the implementation of excessive requirements. The maximalist nature of such requirements today serves as an obstacle to achieving the appropriate steps in the current hierarchical model of higher education. The principle of reasonable sufficiency provides for the reduction (simplification) of such a model, in particular the abandonment of the two-level system of scientific degrees, the practice of awarding academic titles, and so on. The principle of reasonable sufficiency, or minimalism, should help to unleash the potential of the higher education teacher, which should be aimed not at overcoming outdated hierarchical levels and meeting excessive requirements, but at teaching and research work directly. A high school teacher should only be able to teach the relevant subject at the appropriate level and be able to justify his / her right to do so in a competitive environment. In the conditions of the university, it should also be a question of substantiation of the right to be a participant of the respective research program. Requirements for participants in such a program should be determined solely by the nature of such a program and should be prescribed in it. No “Procedures” and “Regulations” at the national level may limit or tend to define such programs. Third, the principle of pluralism and procedural approach. This principle should be opposed to the attempt to universalize the requirements for all research and teaching staff and to consider compliance with a certain “complete” list of requirements as a criterion for recognizing the right to advance in the hierarchical ladder of higher education. It should be assumed that the so-called universal and complete lists of requirements for research and teaching staff (potential associate professors and professors) are not only questionable, but ultimately harmful.

The procedural approach involves the waiver of a certain list of requirements, which claims its completeness and universality.