DUSE, Dan-Maniu
Engineering School, University "Lucian Blaga" of Sibiu, Str. Emil Cioran nr. 4, 2400 Sibiu, Romania, idecan@cs.sibiu.ro
Abstract: The evaluation of study programs/specialisations, and, by means of this, the evaluation of the whole university education system has been legislated in 1993, when the Parliament of Romania has adopted a law concerning this matter: the law 88/1993.
Until then, the formation and development of new specialisations was but the problem of the Ministry responsible for it. The process as a whole was developed as part of the policy of social and economic development of Romania (centralised system).
The paper presents the history of appearance of technical study programs / specialisations in Romania and the way in which their performances have been evaluated.
Since 1989, with the new and modern legislation that has been adopted, the evaluation process has become an important and permanent part of university management, aiming at a performant technical university education system, ranking with the international quality standard.
Keywords: engineering, education, specialisation, accreditation
The Romanian technical higher education system recently celebrated 150 years of existence.
Its gates were opened at the St. Sava monastery in Bucharest, where, under the guidance of Gh. Lazar, the "Scoala academiceasca pentru stiinte filozofesti si matematicesti" (Academic school for philosophical and mathematical sciences) was founded - the first technical school for boundary measuring engineers in Romanian language.
In 1844, through the reform of public education, in Bucharest a Bridges, Roads and Mines School was founded, as application for militaries. The same year, Gh. Duca, future engineer and university professor was born in Bucharest; he would reorganise the technical higher education, becoming in 1881 the first director of the National Bridges and Roads School. Following a proposal from Mihail Kogalniceanu and Gh. Asachi, in 1849 the Higher School for Roads was founded, as application school for the training of architects and construction engineers.
A few decades later, in 1899, Spiru Haret elaborated the law regarding reorganising of the professional education system, on three degrees: elementary (for the small industry and domestic village craftsmen), lower (industral domain) and higher (for engineering licenses which required advanced knowledge).
In the contemporary age, the year 1920 may be considered very important because of the actions taken for the reorganising of the education system:
in Timisoara, the Polytechnical School was founded, with electro-mechanics, mines and metallurgy sections;
in Bucharest, the National School for Bridges and Roads became the Polytechnical School, with building, electrotechnics, mines, metallurgy and industrial chemistry sections;
in Iasi, the Higher School for Roads changed to the Polytechnical School.
After the Second World War, in 1948 an important education reform took place, through which the Polytechnical Schools were transformed in Polytechnical Institutes (Bucharest, Iasi, Timisoara). As the industrial development policy of Romania was programmed on five-year plans, new university centres appeared, geographically distributed by the politic line of uniform development of Romania's regions and imposed by the local industrial tradition. The Polytechnical Institute of Galati was founded (1951), with the specialisations shipbuilding, refrigerating technics, food products technology, pisciculture and reed growing. New specialisations emerged in the traditional university centres (machine building technology, technological equipment, electronics, automations etc.), and then, in the seventh decade, the Universities of Craiova and Brasov were founded, comprising technical, humane, medical, economic, musical etc. specialisations and faculties.
Beginning with 1970, technical specialisations were founded and developed at ramifications of the traditional universities of Romania (at Sibiu, where already humanities specialisations of the Universities of Cluj-Napoca and Brasov were functioning, at Suceava, with specialisations coordinated by the university centre of Iasi), or at pedagogical institutes (Pitesti, Oradea, Tg.-Mures). By founding these specialisations, the functional and administrative structures specific for universities were strengthened, new university centres, autonomous from the juridical point of view, being formed, called Higher Education Institutes (at Suceava, Pitesti, Sibiu, Oradea, Tg.-Mures).
This period (1970-1980) coincided also with the appearance of accented tendencies towards diversification of the specialisations, in order to achieve a speciality training in narrow domains even from the period of university studies. This tendency was accented between 1980-1990, motivated by the wish of the universities to give graduates a better possibility to improve themselves, in order to answer the needs of the national and local industrial development, but also to individualise themselves as univversity centres (e.g., at the Polytechnical Institute of Bucharest, the specialisation plane building from the me-chanics faculty was transformed in a separate faculty, with three specialisations: plane building, control apparatusses and heat engines, or at Sibiu, where the specialisation manufacturing technology for nuclear power plants was founded).
The communist period (1948-1989) can be synthetically characterised as being the one who determined the strong development of technical higher education, motivated by the industrial development of the country. Alas, in the eight decade, there was no more synchronisation between the schooling figures approved by the communist government and the industrial needs, hence leading to an inflation of specialists. This situation was hidden until the end of 1989, by employing all graduates in enterprises, in overdimensioned personnel structures, which didn't offer them the possibility to exercise their engineering profession and to gain the experience of industrial applications.
In this entire period, the universities and higher education institutes were legislatively and administratively led by the specialised ministry from the government (Minstry of Education and Science) by the means of laws (Education law no. 26/1978, law no. 6/1969, the Statute of the didactical personnel from the SRR, Regulation regarding the professional activity of students OMEJ no. 1689/1972 etc.) and by orders of the ministry. The degree of university autonomy was very low, the functioning of these institutions being co-ordinated and supervised in detail by the specialised ministry and by the local organisations of the communist party.
Although in this period a large number of specialisations have appeared and developed, there existed no accreditation law. The appearance of a new specialisation was directly related to the existence and in-place forming of human resources and of material base (classrooms, endowment, investments), and the founding decision was made by the specialised ministry. Later, there was a long-term supervision process, realised by the traditional universities which owned these specialisations or directly by the specialised ministry. There were periodical inspections by teams of faculty members from the traditional university centres and by specialists in university administration from the ministry. During this supervision and control activity, the basic components of the higher education were screened, the same with those in the future law of accreditation. The graduation exam was held under the presidency of a faculty member from the traditional university centres, named by order of the ministry. The effect of these measures' applying was a double one, pre-venting possible failures in the formation and development of new specialisations and silent recognising of the traditional higher schools' renown and prestige. The authority and decision power was absolute, and belonged to the higher governmental office workers from the specialised ministry, themselves co-ordinated by the central bodies of the communist party. The graduates of new specialisations had equal rights with their colleagues from traditional university centres, participating with equal chances at the annual distribution of workplaces.
The faculty members' retribution system was the same in the whole country, indifferent of the education institution's age, differences being related only to the size of the institution (number of students) and showing up only in the calculation of the amount of the management bodies' salaries.
After the political, economic and social changes from December 1989, in Romania have been founded an impressive number of state and private universities. Their specialisations were mostly humanities, juridical, economic, theological sciences, that is exactly those that were left behind in the last part of the communist period. The technical specialisations experienced a major setback due to the specialists inflation, to the decline of national industry and to the increase ion job offers in other sectors than the industrial one (law, trade, finances, social assistance, administration etc.).
An important percentage (up to 25% in the state education system and over 50% in the private education institutions) of the new specialisations, were based on very short and superficially drawn out justifying documents, which reflected mostly the interest of government and Romanian Parliament members to have universities in each county capital, or the need of some university members to have a supplementary income. The inexisting material base (classrooms, libraries, lodging spaces, endowment of laboratories etc.) and the sometimes-formal admission exam, questioned the quality of the education system and eventually of the licence to be awarded. Moreover, new specialisations emerged by adorning the older specialsitations' names, by importing study programs from the EU, USA and Canada, or even as original autochthonous variants, inspired from the imagination of some faculty members.
For the technical higher education, the period after December 1989 meant a decrease of high school graduates' interest for engineering licences, thus a decrease of the competition coefficient, which determined the reducing of schooling figures by 30-50% and the appearance of new specialisations, thought to be much more attractive (mechatronics, economics-engineering, applied sciences etc.). At the same time, the contents of curricula was re-analysed and later changed through TEMPUS-type European programs.
Most of these actions were supervised by the Education Ministry, which in parallel unfolded activities for a true development of university autonomy.
All these made the further control and supervision by the Education Ministry almost impossible, but at the same time, the necessity arose for a nation-wide attesting of the education process' quality.
In these conditions, the Romanian Government and Parliament proposed, based on the model of English-speaking countries, the adoption of a law for the accreditation of higher education institutions, which should ensure the functioning on a non-profit base, according to certain academic evaluation and accreditation criteria and standards
Through the law no. 88/1993, law regarding the accreditation of higher education institutions and the recognising of diplomas, the accreditation and evaluation of specialisations, faculties and universities was ensured, by going through a complex procedure which involves institutions and their personnel (figure 1).
The decisive role in the evaluation process is held by the National Council for Academic Evaluation and Accreditation (NCAEA), composed of 19-21 members, named by the Parliament at the Government's proposal.
NCAEA settles the evaluation commissions by domains. For the technical higher education there are two commissions for engineering sciences, which comprise all technical specialisations and fields of study.
The evaluation commissions are permanent bodies, composed of 7-9 members, with a president, vice-president and secretary, named by the NCAEA.
The activity of the NCAEA and of the evaluation commissions unfolds according to the Decision of the Government of Romania no. 528/1994. According to the law 88/1993 and to this document, the Education Ministry, through the General Direction for Higher Education and University Scientific Research (GDHEUSR) solicitates from each university evaluation reports (figure 1), for the already functioning specialisations or for proposed ones. Then a complex process of drawing out files regarding self-evaluation and evaluation inside the university begins, which are then forwarded to the NCAEA, through the evaluation commissions. The GDHEUSR supervises the observance and realising of the evaluation process for the entire structure of each university, i.e for each specialisation, and depending on the evaluation's results (admitted, rejected) proposes taking measures according to legal provisions (ceasing of schooling, not granting a schooling figure or the repeating of the evaluation process after a year).
Inside the NCAEA, the evaluation process takes place by evaluation commissions, according to the algorithm presented in figure 2. There are three branches a, b and c, by which the position of specialisations to the law 88/1993 is specified, according to the year of their founding.
Figure 2. The accreditation process of Romanian higher education institutions
According to law 88/1993, the accreditation comprises three distinct stages:
provisional functioning authorisation;
accreditation;
periodical evaluation.
These stages differ in time and by the nature and level of general criteria and specific standards for evaluation.
Hence, as a recognition of the tradition and adequate quality of the education process in Romania, specialisation which have functioned before 1989 (branch a), are undergoing only the last stage, a periodical evaluation. If the periodical evaluation file is rejected, after a year from the rejection a new, decisive evaluation takes place. By this stage, it is granted the necessary time to remedy the causes which led to the rejection of the file, and if these remediations are not satisfactory (if they don't respect the general criteria and specific standards), a definitive ceasing of the specialisation's functioning is ordered and all students from this specialisation are redistributed to other specialisations or to other accredited university centres.
The general criteria refer to the teaching personnel, to the curricula, material base, scientific activity and financial activity.
The specific standards comprise data regarding study types and the percentage values, in the curricula of fundamental, speciality, complementary and field-specific disciplines.
Specialisations founded after 1989 (branch b), between 1990-1994, being in a formation process, must undergo the whole accreditation process (the three stages). The possible rejection of files are followed by the ceasing of teaching activities beginning with the first year of study and the distribution of students from other years of study (II, III, IV and V) to other accredited university centres.
The new specialisations which were proposed for functioning beginning with 1995/1996 (branch c) will follow the entire accreditation process, if a provisional schooling authorisation was obtained. If not, the file must be re-done.
The NCAEA is an independent body, with its own organisation structure. The Council's activity unfolds according to the accreditation law no. 88/1993 and with the DGR no. 528/1994 and is supervised by the speciality commissions of the Romanian Parliament. NCAEA is composed of 19-21 members, named from a public list of candidates, persons (university members) renowned for their professional competence, moral probity and impartiality, selected by the Ministry of Education and later forwarded to the Government for approval in the Parliament.
The NCAEA has its own technical apparatus and uses experts.
The president, vice-president and secretary of the NCAEA are chosen by the council among its members, at the proposal of the education minister. The members of the NCAEA are renewed each 4 years to 33%.
The NCAEA names the evaluation commissions and their members among specialists proposed by the councils of the speciality faculties (faculty members), as well as among other specialists. The coomissions are permanent bodies composed of 7-9 members, renewed each 4 years to 33%. The president, vice-president and secretary of each commission are named by the NCAEA.
The NCAEA is meeting in bi-monthly sessions to make decisions regarding its attributions. The decisions concerning provisional authorisation and accreditation of specialisations are made by secret voting, a majority of half plus one of all council members being necessary.
The NCAEA has its own annual budget (according to its own estimations). Financial resources comprise:
funds constituted from authorisation and accreditation taxes;
rewards, donations from international or internal bodies;
other sources which don't contravene with the law and with NCAEA's regulations.
All expenses related to the functioning of the NCAEA and of the evaluation commissions are covered from its budget.
The accreditation process began in 1994 when the NCAEA and GDHEUSR solicitated the forwarding of self-evaluation files by all specialisations founded after 1989.
NCAEA has sent to all universities a "Guide of evaluation commissions", which comprised three distinctive parts:
about accreditation;
standards of evaluation and accreditation;
an institutional or programmatic self-evaluation study, in order to support the evaluation process and bring it nearer to NCAEA's mission and objectives.
These documents were a first stage in the definition of NCAEA's point of view regarding the equal assimilation of the evaluation methodology by the evaluation commissions and by the universities. Although short, the documents were completed by models (tables, figures etc.) for information synthesis, specific for the accreditation. Through standards for the evaluation process it is sought to explicitate the articles from the accreditation law regarding evaluation criteria which are valid for all fields of study and specialisations from the higher education.
The evaluation process consisted in the analysis of the evaluation files, followed by visits at the institution whose study program had to be screened, in order to prove the credibility of the information comprised in the file.
The moment of visits had a major contribution in defining NCAEA's point of view towards each specialisation, and it helped the evaluation commissions to improve the "Guide of evaluation commissions".
Then followed reports by the evaluation commissions regarding the contents of the file and the facts ascertained during the visits (proof of credibility). These represented the official documents for the decision making of the NCAEA, which transmitted in July 1995 the results of evaluation (authorisation or non-authorisation) to the Ministry of Education.
Based on NCAEA's reports, the Ministry of Education disposed through Decision of the Government of Romania no.568/95 to grant or not the provisional functioning authorisation to analysed specialisations and the way in which the provisions of the accreditation law will be put into action (continuation of the accreditation process, situation of students from non-accredited specialisations, situation of faculties and universities with non-accredited specialisations etc.).
At the same time, in this DGR were published for the first time all specialisations which functioned even before 1989 and which were automatically accredited.
On the list of specialisations authorised through DGR 568/1995 there were also specialisations which were not authorised by the NCAEA, but for which the Ministry of Education assumed its responsibility for the functioning authorisation. The acceptance criteria were economic (large investments in their forming and development) and they took into account the Ministry of Education's strategy for a short-term restructuring of the Romanian higher education system through the assimilation of new specialisations (food products technology, exploitation and capitalisation of natural gases etc.) for which a large demand exists on the workforce market.
The first concrete application of the accreditation law permitted the improvement of the evaluation methodology by the publishing of the guide-document "Academic evaluation of higher education institutions", Bucharest, 1996, which comprises following:
NCAEA's program for periodical academic evaluation;
the list of quality coefficients;
the guide for the elaboration of the evaluation report;
general standards for periodical academic evaluation and accreditation;
specific standards for periodical academic evaluation and accreditation.
For all specialisations which functioned before 1989 evaluation files were solicited until November 1st, 1996.
Although the evaluation guide comprises most of the data necessary for the drawing out of evaluation files, the actual drawing-out process at department and faculty level was slow and took a long period of time (January 1996 - November 1996), in first place because of the very large amount of requested data, and because of the deficient administrative structure of most of the universities. Here following deficiencies can be emphasised:
lack of an information system at department, faculty and university level,
lack of endowment with modern publishing and multiplication means for the large amount of documents;
lack of auxiliary personnel (secretaries) with higher education in the domain of university administration and management.
lack of post-university studies for university administration and management for faculty members in administrative positions (head of department, vice-deans, deans, vice-rectors, rectors).
The accreditation began in the winter of 1995, when the Engineering School developed and submitted the self-evaluation file to the NCAEA, through the Education Ministry.
The evaluation process consisted of a document analysis, which was followed by two visits (May 1995 and in April 1997). On both occasions, favourable, even eulogistic reports were issued on how this study program was progressing. During the last visit acknowledgements were made especially to Engineering-Business Management department's personnel who are conducting the study program, the contents of the curricula and analytical programs, the business management library, and scientific research activity. As a consequence of the file's analysis and of the observations made during the visits, the provisional functioning authorisation was granted.
From a juridical point of view, the Engineering-Business Management study program was founded in 1993 by governmental decision. Since its certification, it has been included in the taxonomy of study programs and specialities of the Education Ministry. The Engineering School received the rights to organize the teaching process and to propose a student quota for the first year of study through the Education Ministry's order in the same year. The legislation ruling the organization and functioning of the Romanian educational system is constituted by the Constitution of Romania voted in 1992, the Education Law (law no. 84/1995) and the Accreditation Law (law no. 88/1993).
The Engineering School of the University "Lucian Blaga" of Sibiu was submitted to the accreditation process between May 1994 - July 1995. The Engineering-Business Management study program was analyzed at the level of the accreditation file and during two extended visits at the Engineering School. The Engineering-Business Management program satisfied the criteria and standards of academic evaluation and accreditation.
At present, the Engineering-Business Management department comprises positions which cover most of the disciplines of the curricula for the present four years of study. It is foreseen that by the time when the first economical engineers will graduate (i.e. in 1998), the department will comprise approximately 38 positions for professors, associate professors, lecturers, assistants and tutors.
90% of full-time and associate faculty members are from the different schools of the University "Lucian Blaga" of Sibiu (Engineering, Science, Law), but also from outside the University "Lucian Blaga" of Sibiu. All professors, teaching specialty disciplines are included in the Romanian-American cooperative program.
The harmonisation of the study program and department with other study programs and departments within the Engineering School and the University "Lucian Blaga" of Sibiu was accomplished by several means. Hence, the general background and technical disciplines from the curricula are supported by the specialty departments of the University "Lucian Blaga" of Sibiu (mathematics-information department, law department, department of fundamentals of machine design, etc.).
BALAN, ST & MIHAILESCU, N. History of Science and Technics in Romania, chronological dates. Bucharest: Publishing House of the Academy of the SRR, 1985.
Law no. 88/1993 regarding the accreditation of higher education institutions and recognising of diplomas. In Official Monitor of Romania, part I, no. 307/27.12.1993, Bucharest, 1993.
Decision of the Governement of Romania no. 528/1994 regarding the approval of regulations for the unfolding of the activity of the National Council for Academic Evaluation and Accreditation and of evaluation commissions. In Official Monitor of Romania, part I, no. 234/25.08.1994. Bucharest, 1993.
Decision of the Governement of Romania no. 568/1995 regarding the granting of the provisional functioning authorisation according to the provisions of the law 88/1993 cencerning the accreditation of higher education institutions and recognising of diplomas. In: Official Monitor of Romania, part I, no. 185/16.08.1995. Bucharest, 1995.