Global Changes and the Question of Quality in Higher Education

Abstract

The text considers current approaches to the quality of education based on the external control of outcomes (mechanicistic-technicistic orientation and economic logic), as well as the alternative proposed by the advocates of socio-culture and critical currents within pedagogy, insisting on the respect for essential characteristics of the educational process (uniqueness, comprehensiveness, development, complexity, dynamics, context and unpredictability, etc.). The quality of higher education teaching is considered according to the assessment of the degree of implementing essential indicators referring to: the acquisition of study programmes, the realisation of one’s own development, the harmonisation of one’s personal value system with the benefit of social progress, the ability of practical application of what has been learnt and the ability of independent learning and innovativeness. The research is explorative and the assessment was carried out by students as actors in the educational process (purposeful sample – 240; the Teacher Training Faculty – Belgrade University and the Faculty of Philosophy – Novi Sad University). The basic finding refers to the students’ evaluation indicating a low level of efficacy of higher education teaching in view of being equipped for practical application of what has been learnt, being prepared for independent learning and trained for innovativeness.