Reforming Higher Education in a Post-Soviet Context

At the level of reform implementation, very few changes are based upon the findings of research and, paradoxically, this is particularly the case in the field of higher education. While great at studying and recommending changes for others, universities appear to be reluctant to engage in a process of change themselves and not very good at it when they do. Major gaps between research and policymaking, on one hand, and the teachers and administrators, on the other hand, still prevail. Despite being cognisant of this, universities take very few steps to establish an active dialogue between the actors in an educational change process. This is doubly the case in developing countries where very few changes are informed by meaningful research and a lack of dialogue between the stakeholders is standard.