“Higher education institutions are on short HR rations today”. What goes on in the higher education system of Belarus.
This a continuation of a mini-cycle. Read the beginning here.
Alexandra is 20. After two years of studying at the BSU, she became completely disappointed in the education system. Many highly skilled lectures have been laid off to be replaced by recent graduates who made blunders reading lectures to their students.
Besides, the university engaged in constant ideological work, there were so-called “curator’s hours” which were very hard to skip and which were devoted to telling student how to live and think. As a result, Alexandra dropped out of the BSU and went to study at one of universities in Germany.
And there are a lot of young people like that. Even Aliaksander Lukashenka during his meeting with university rectors dubbed school graduates’ aspiration to get their higher education abroad a “problem”: “Why is it that the BSU, the BPU (Belarusian Polytechnic University), the medical universities, or the BSUIR (Belarusian IT and Radio Electronics University) are not on our whizz kids’ priority lists for higher education?”
He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure FOR EVER? Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back to him:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
George Orwell, «1984»
Alexandra’s story touched upon another big, and already chronic, issue – skilled personnel shortage which leads to the required level of skills to be met by job seekers tumbling down.
For instance, the Master’s degree is no longer mandatory to read lectures in Belarusian higher education institutions. Dismissed academics are replaced by yesterday’s graduates under the provision for obligatory work the latter have to perform as a way of compensation for their free education; notably, their employment contracts are concluded for the longest term and have the worst conditions.
Another widely spread practice in higher education today is the signing of long-term contracts with pensioners. In October 2024, President of the Belarusian Trade Union Federation Yuri Senko announced an amendment to the legislation that would guarantee the payment of 100% of the pension allowance to all working pensioners. Obviously, this is another of the authorities’ attempts to resolve the crisis situation on the labour market.
The issue is admitted even by the authorities. Aliaksander Shatko whom the CTV paints as a “public figure” (in his time, he progressed all the way to the post of Deputy Chair of the “Belaya Rus” “public association”) stated:
“The shortage of specialists, particularly, STEM lecturers, is felt very keenly even today. Many higher education institutions have closed their teacher training departments in the area of engineering, electronics, etc.
Today, educational institutions are on short HR rations. They lack not only professionals who could tell you about the operation of assembly units and machines but also those who possess teaching qualities.”
At the same time, they attempt to keep the majority of the most active and productive members of the faculty under control with the constant threat of non-renewal of their employment contracts, concluding the latter for the minimum term in violation of the employees’ rights enshrined in the CBAs signed with several education institutions and abusing the academics’ lack of awareness of the labour legislation and CBA provisions.
Some university Chairs go on without their Heads for six months running. There are not enough lecturers to cover the amount of the teaching workload, hence, the growing number of obligatory working hours for university teachers.
Also, many of the faculty members are persuaded to work beyond the regular hours, covering the positions of their absent colleagues in the staffing lists. Quite recently, amendments to the Labour Code were announced that allow the employer to sign in a staffing list with vacant positions, if it is agreed with the union.
In this case, the teaching hours of missing lecturers are distributed among the faculty that are there.
The majority of dismissals for political and ideological reasons are done in an underhand manner, seemingly, in formal compliance with the Labour Code: for instance, people may be laid off following a “coercive voluntary” agreement between the parties, or they refuse to renew contracts without stating the motive. One of the more resonant instances of the “(un)voluntary severances” was the dismissal of an associate member of the National Academy of Sciences, Dean of the BSU Biology Department Vadim Demidchik who belongs to the top 2% of the most quoted scientists in the world, in the summer of 2024.
In the spring of 2023, the BSU refused to renew the employment contract of another prominent Belarusian scientist Siarhei Kostyuk, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, who for a long time had been the Head of a Chair at the Chemistry Department.
Some university Chairs face the threat of merger because of the critical drop in the number of degree-holding lecturers available. Thus, at the Belarusian Medical University, the Chair of Bioorganic Chemistry was merged with the Chair of Chemistry, and the BSU found itself two Chairs short. Similar mergers with staff redundancies took place in many other higher education institutions.
The third part of the mini-cycle to follow on Monday, February 24.
Victoria Leontieva
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