The higher education system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, composed out of 8 public and 22 private universities, seems to have a major problem – that it is highly constrained by the legal situation and thus it does not benefit of a suitable framework. After going through all the cooperation developed by the universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of our conclusions is that a more modern and progressive Cantonal legislation can influence positively the number and the quality of bilateral agreements. When it comes to regional cooperation, universities Bosnia and Herzegovina concentrate by far on bilateral agreements with faculties and universities from Serbia (48), followed by Croatian universities(9) and Montenegrin (7). At a first glimpse, one can say there is still much to be done in Bosnia and Herzegovina in what concerns the regional cooperation in the field of education and the federation should be more open to all the other Western Balkan countries.
Best Practice
Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo
Bilateral Cooperation is being undertaken by the Faculty of Political Sciences University of Sarajevo. International Contracts on Cooperation have been signed with the following faculties and universities in the region:
- Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Zagreb
- Faculty of Philosophy, University of Pristina
- Law Faculty, University Ćiril and Metodije Skopje
- Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Podgorica
- Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade
- Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana
On October 26, 2006 a Joint Contract was signed with all these universities, and afterwards (in the period 2007-2009.) we signed bilateral contracts with each of these faculties, with more precise details of cooperation. The aim of this regional networking is exchange of lecturers and students, exchange of experience on innovation of curricula and joint research projects.With the Faculty of Social Sciences University of Ljubljana we have excellent cooperation. A result of that cooperation was a one-semester visit of our Professor Nermina Mujagić to Ljubljana where she gave lectures, did her post-doctoral research and participated in scientific conferences. Also, FSS from Ljubljana delivers their publications (books and magazines) to FPS Sarajevo and vice versa. Plans for studies and curricula of our Faculty have been sent to the FSS Ljubljana for review.
A result of cooperation with the Faculty of Political Sciences University of Zagreb is that one student from Zagreb was placed on an exchange programme in Sarajevo. Also, we participate in conferences organized by the FPS Zagreb (in May 2011 - two professors from the Faculty of Political Sciences Sarajevo will participate in a scientific conference “Women and Media” in Zagreb). Professor Siniša Tatalović from FPS Zagreb did a review of a book “Minority and Media in B&H” written by professors from FPS Sarajevo (Jelenka Voćkić Avdagić, Asad Nuhanović, Valida Repovac Pašić and Lejla Turčilo). Professor Lejla Turčilo did a review of articles for a publication “Media Accuracy” which will be published at the FPS Zagreb (Editor in Chief Professor Viktorija Car).
We recently established cooperation with the Department for Media Studies Faculty of Philosophy University of Novi Sad. The agreement for cooperation will be signed in January 2011. Four students from FPS Sarajevo participated in a Summer school “Bridges of Media Education” in September 2010 in Novi Sad (they were awarded with 3 ECTS) and four students from Novi Sad participated in a Seminar “Media in the Region” at the Faculty of Political Sciences Sarajevo in October 2010. We also received 15 books from Novi Sad and sent 12 books to them.
The Faculty of Political Sciences is devoted to developing further cooperation with regional faculties. The biggest advantage of this is that we share the same language, which makes it easier for students to follow lectures in the whole region. But, we see that the interest of students to travel within the region is much lower than their interest to travel to European countries or the USA. We had only one student so far in the exchange programme in Sarajevo (from Zagreb) and only one professor from Sarajevo to Ljubljana. Students prefer to go on shorter visits to regional faculties (summer schools, seminars, conferences). An additional problem is the financing of students’ visits (they are free of tuition fees, but they have to find ways to cover their own living expenses). Thus, the exchange of students is still the weakest point in bilateral cooperation.The strongest aspect of our cooperation is the exchange of books and publications. We received so far approximately 40-45 books and publications from partner faculties and sent approximately the same number of books and publications to them. We receive a magazine “Public” from Ljubljana on a regular base as well as a magazine “Kod 04” from Novi Sad.
The important step for us was also to send our curricula to colleagues in Ljubljana for review. This will help us to develop better courses, which is an important step towards accreditation of our Faculty. The review from Ljubljana is expected in January 2011.
Article written by LEJLA TURČILO, PhD
International Cooperation Office, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo
