C. Basic principles for composition of Unified Higher Education
C1. Science and obligations of the University that serves it
So, science could be defined as the human activity for development of new knowledge through the expansion of laws of objective reality and their theoretical systemization.
Knowledge is the reflection of objective reality by the human. It is not a simple reflection of a mirror, immediate and complete. If things were the way they seem to be, then science would be useless, Marx said. This procedure consists of a series of removals, formulations, ideations, notions, laws etc., that embrace, approximately, universal laws of nature and society, which move timelessly and develop. So, cognitive procedure is an endless procedure, during which, correspondence between knowledge and reality is getting more and more approximate, without being completely identified.
In terms of this, university, Higher level of education is, certainly, professional learning, but it is not a simple one. Its specific characteristic, the one that divides it from previous levels of education, is its linkage with research and attraction of students in a creative, scientific, researching work.
It is obvious, how negative, for the preparation of young scientists and the level of Higher education, is the fact that research in our country is in a low level and outside of universities. What about now that new structure and- defined by the ‘’market’’- content of studies, forbid students of even this restricted researching activity that university departments and sectors take on.
So, substantial presupposition of Higher Education is the transmission to students of the ability to think and act scientifically and not just the tutoring of methods of usurpation of knowledge, of its repetition or request in its sources, as it is happening today. That is, the familiarity of students during their studies, with scientific work, through forms of self-existent project, that helps in development of thought, activity and initiative, and in acquiring methods of scientific research. At the beginning, through simpler forms, such as annual projects, that can be reviews from publications and scientific writings, or small experimental researches. At the next level, with more and more complex forms, such as specific scientific seminars, where current achievements of science of the corresponding specialty and modern methods of scientific researches, will be examined, in which students will be called so as to introduce various issues and participate sprightfully in the conversations. At the final level, through diplomatic projects, students will have to obtain the ability of conducting experiments or researches, analyzing their results, subtractive processing of their most substantial elements and generalization of conclusions. They have to access, that is, methodology of research, process of knowledge from the only (specific) to especial and then to the general. In many occasions, these projects may be, in fact, scientific researches.
As for graduate studies, they must belong in a unified cycle and lead exclusively to a doctorate. Their distinction from undergraduate studies is that graduate studies pay more attention in the production of new knowledge, whereas undergraduate ones pay attention in the obtainment of the already produced knowledge. This phrase is used, because familiarity with researching procedure is a basic presupposition of undergraduate, such as, correspondingly, attendance of lessons cycle, tutoring, is an element of graduate cycle, as well, that lead to doctorate.
In this context, Higher Institutions have to be big educational and scientific centers, in which substantial researching assignment is conducted. Development of science in universities creates the basis for the education of especial scientists of high specialty, reproduction of their scientific staff, and for the approximation of principles and methods of completion of didactic and pedagogic assignment. Conducting research is, therefore, of primary importance activity of Higher Institutions. Orientation of research in useful for the people purposes, disposal of resources for university research that is fundamental and applied, transposition of attention of researching project from the unapproachable monopolistic research centers and laboratories to universities, departments and their sectors, in conditions of total transparency for the wide propagation of results, social control and its connection with education, are determinant for a high-level Higher Education, in the service of people.
C2. Social role of science and Higher Education
Because science is above all a medium for the transformation of the world. We do not study to study but mainly to change wittingly the world that surrounds us, to adjust it in human standards. ‘’Reshaping of nature and society by the human is the most direct fundament of human knowledge, and mentality of human advanced by the time he learned the material’’. For this reason, practice ‘’work, incessant material creation of people, in one word, this production is the basis of the today’s entire sensible world’’. Even most abstract sciences have their root in practical problems that humanity confronted historically, in economic purposes and in attempt to enforce class dominance.
Needs of production, needs of the socioeconomic system in general set priorities, purposes and problems that science has to confront. Since the era of industrial revolution, when capitalism changed science to an immediate productive force, from the moment that productive procedure constitutes, in a bigger and bigger level, a technological application of science (by its embodiment in productive media, in organization and direction forms of work, in cultural –technological level of workers), connection between science and production becomes tighter and tighter.
Therefore, our aim is not to detach Higher Education from production, but to connect production -the universities, too- with the real social needs, with the incessant development of material and mental level of people. This has to be the social role of universities and not their reshaping in accessory of ‘’market’’, so as to raise profits and authority of monopolies.
Actually, what is going on Universities, is not anything else but connection with the antisocial needs of capitalistic production. What could be the point, for example, of a European slogan of ‘’learning of learning’’ and of ‘’life-long learning’’, if not an attempt to disguise a reality of learning to learn, since the most time the majority of graduates will be unemployed?
Besides, action is not only the basis of knowledge but a criterion for its truth as well. In the process of this practice, our notions and theories are controlled and the false ones are being rejected. Correctness of reflection of reality can be ascertained only inside the reality.
The above markings lead to certain criteria about the composition of university studies. Mainly, the lead to the basic criterion of shaping the specialties of university studies, that can only be scientific but combine, as well, scientism of the object with the real social needs that is going to serve.
Nowadays, relevant independence of theory from action advanced in relation with the past and this exact event created the theoretical presuppositions for new applications in production and foundation of a sequence of new industrial branches. Unity of scientific theoretical knowledge and action represents an indirect unity. Detachment of theoretical from immediate practical purposes is an compulsory condition for science to get over limits of experience.
Neither action nor applied research must be interpreted as empiricism, as a subordinate, nonscientific work. Presupposition of the applied research is, also, the theoretical research, discovering of specific determinism and not only a simple immediate application of abstract theoretical notions and laws.
On the basis of the apportionment of research, sciences are generally divided fundamental or theoretical and to practical or applied depending on the direction and the direct relationship with production.
Fundamental sciences examine laws that direct behavior and interaction of basic structures of nature, society and perception, which they study in ‘’clear’’ form and not with the exclusive purpose of a possible application. So, fundamental sciences can be introduced in the enlistment of sciences that Engel’s maid based on the forms of material movement and also, their mutual transformation are the object of their study. Direct purpose of practical sciences is the utilization of results of fundamental sciences to solve not only cognitive but, also, social and practical problems.
Among theoretical and practical sciences, there are no sinitic walls.
Unity of theoretical and practical sciences consists in the fact that theoretical sciences have their origin in practice and return back to it, through their applications. Often, for example, through applied research, fundamental notions could come out and, reversely, basic research could lead directly to inventions. Generally, in the history of science we will repeatedly see an interfeeding relationship among theoretical and applied knowledge where new perspectives of examination of theoretical research lead to the creation of new applied branches. For this reason theoretical sciences can not be implied independent from technological ones and theory can not be detached from each application, neither the reverse. Practice declines and degenerates when it is not fed by abstract thought.
This distinction has class character and its roots are deep in the history, in the bigger part of which the two branches of technical and scientific knowledge went separately. Although, technique nowadays, is a product of deep development of scientific knowledge and has become science, technology, the devaluation of technique is maintained till today. In previous levels of education, technique is expressed by the division in universities and T.E.I. university-non university.
Although, in the process of their development, several T.E.I. got over their principal destination and we can say that they offer a satisfactory for the Higher Education level of studies, substructure and didactic staff. Therefore, conditions advance so as to stop from being debase of Universities or distinct category of an aggregate of ‘’Higher’’ education. Development of technology that T.E.I. serve but, also, social need for a Higher, scientific level of productive staff lead, de facto, to the withdrawal of their separation from universities. Though, they still confront serious problems. Problems like those, begin from the restricted character of the object of their studies that in most cases comprise subdivisions of objects of universities departments, problems of substructure and didactic staff, since in the major percentage, tutorship is covered by emergent staff or staff that does not have the necessary qualifications for the attribute of university tutor. Progress presses for a solution to be found. A solution that will pay attention to problems that exist in universities, as well, in a procedure of composition of a Unified Higher Education.
On the other side, we have the composition of departments of general, seminar character that offer flavors from a wide variety of scientific branches and areas, e.g. department of sciences of sea, department of sciences of art, department of environment etc. That is departments that are detached from any social utility and from the access to any profession. Simultaneously, universities hide an older sin. A great number of their departments has a theoretical character, a detached from action and with an indefinite social assignment. And if this, in the period of its creation, seventy or more years ago, when knowledge was less and technology was not in the today’s level of development, might be right, today is out of date. Characteristic example comprises the named ‘’professorial’’ schools (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Philosophy etc) which do not give to their graduates neither necessary pedagogic skills to teach in middle education nor do they prepare them completely for a sequence of other sectors of production. So, they leave the way open to new monopolistic settings, for transfer of scientific specialty to a graduate level and detachment of undergraduate studies from the profession. As soon as positions of tutors in schools diminish, as a consequence of the policy that removes prematurely students from education and reduces expenses, the problem of unemployment of graduates of these departments will grow.
Unfortunately in these departments new ones were added, as well, such as department of Methodology, History and Theory of Science, various departments of Geography and several others that although, their object of studies is scientific, they lead with a mathematic accuracy their graduates to unemployment and to contradistinctions with other specialties, about who is going to teach first the same type of lessons at school.
Creation of new departments and reformation of the old schedules must take into consideration the economy of our country, in the potential of a complete development to the benefit of people. Development of a series of fundamental sciences does not necessarily pass through the creation of productive departments of researchers, but through the general departments of university schools and the graduate degrees which lead to a doctorate.
The situation, through a process of continuous deterioration has come to an end. The only solution that may exist is the reshaping of Higher Education by the modulation of a Unified, Public and Free Higher Education, without study cycles and antiscientific divisions to correspond really to its social role.
Basic presupposition of this reshaping is the reexamination and redefinition of scientific objects of departments of Higher education, on the basis of real social needs and needs of development of science. This clarification represents what the scientific object deals with, what studies, which is the cycle of basic problems that solves. A clarification that will, of course, take into account the shaped reality without being subjected to it. In this context, parallel to the shaping of study schedules of universities, radical changes are possibly needed that will promote today’s reality of university studies. Characteristic example is the need of modulation of unified Pedagogic schools, with pedagogic departments that will secure, simultaneously with the specialty of teaching, the pedagogic adequacy, as well, not as a subordinate skill to be acquired in an additional study cycle, but as a basic scientific background of the tutor.
Generally, scientists are defined and shined from each other by the object of their research, which records socioeconomic needs that science serves. Definition of scientific object is necessary for people to understand the position of every science inside the system of knowledge. This position does not remain inalterable, as much as given science, but, also, as a system of the rest of sciences, develops. Definition of scientific object still presents a lot of difficulties, because the marking of issues of its research is not at all simple. For what reason are these issues the object of this specific science, which are their qualitative differences from other issues, excluded from its field? Moreover, definition of scientific object must not restrict the possibilities of its development, so it has to be examined continuously.
Besides its complexity, the solution of this issue is of determinative importance for Higher Education and the future of its graduates. The solution that can come through a broad discussion which has to start by today, among the interested, tutors, didactic staff of T.E.I., scientists and students.
On the basis of defined scientific objects of departments that defines their social function too, there may be a solution to the other problem of professional rights, as well.
For the fulfillment of these three basic conditions, departments of T.E.I. must be equal to departments of universities of Higher Education, withal the presuppositions of structure, content of studies, their connection with research and society. However, due to the fact that education contributes to social inallocation of work, it is obvious that this procedure cannot move independently from the general planning of needs of production and society.
Government’s logic (and that of other political forces), that asks for evaluation of T.E.I., with the conditions of “market”, find as opponents (because it will lead unavoidably) departments that their object of studies has the potential of an important contribution to the development of productive forces of our country, outside of Higher Education. Moreover, another proposition that finds us opponents is the one suggesting T.E.I as “university” and “non-Higher”. To all intents, this proposition recommends introduction of professional education in universities, transfers existent differences and oppositions in University and leads to disorganization of its structure.
Professional Education must be acquired in a distinct system of Public Professional Schools, which will offer a high level professional education by developing all those specialties that do not require Higher Education and, nowadays, though necessary, are not covered by any level of the educational system.
In the position of an insistently and systematically cultivated conscience, the only answer is the presentation of another idea about the social role of a scientist. An apprehension that wants him to think and act scientifically and in the social level. To follow the historical determinants of socioeconomic progress, which set him in the side of working class and other, repressed layers, in the fight for a new organization of society, the development of which will be based on the scientifically fundamental planning. Even more now the great majority of scientists are introduced organically in the working class. Therefore, the solution of the problem of the role of the scientist lies in how opposing social forces comprehend the purpose of science. The purpose of science could not be the “competitiveness” of enterprises and amplification of dominance of the few over the many, but the revealing of social, economic, mental level of the total of people, “the release of human existence from the toil”. We study so as to change consciously the world and not to maintain the old one, which gets worse the older it gets. Here is where common benefits of university tutors, of students and the entire people, about science and universities-levers of social progress, meet.
Basic presupposition for the modulation, to new people, of a deep apprehension of their role, presupposition for the connection of Higher Education with the real social needs, is the reformation of study schedules so as to include, together with the complete deep knowledge of the object of every science, the cultivation of a general scientific worldview and bio-theory. This is not a simple addition in the study schedule of lessons in social sciences, which are instructed, with no connection with the general content of the schedule, by reproducing unscientific and out-of-date theories. The transmission of a scientific worldview and a dialectical way of thinking, is a 100% concern of the study schedule and teaching methods, that must be formed in a such way to reveal the interconnection of scientific knowledge and the introduction of especial laws in the general ones, and to point the position of every science in the general system not only of science, but also, of production and social life. This fact presupposes, of course, the teaching of basic social sciences (philosophy, political economy, sociology and history) and, also, the transmission of theoretical knowledge for the way of organizing and managing the social production.
A second significant aspect of the study schedule and the function of Higher Educational Institutions is the creation of presuppositions of connection between theoretical teaching and practical social activity, in and out of the University. In University it can be created by laboratories and a wide utilisation of modern technology, which today, though it is deified, in several cases is non-existent even in its most primitive, traditional forms. Out of University, by the direct participation of students in social productive work, not for them to be familiarized with submission, as it is going on nowadays, but to transfer to them the ability to take on its direction tomorrow for progressive purposes. By practicing, under the guidance of the University, which will begin from the job of a simple worker and will reach – at the end of studies- the one of an independent scientific assignment, by connecting University with all sides of social and mental activity, its participation in social life for the enlightening and not for the obfuscation of reality. Characteristic examples of such a positive action is the opposition that certain scientific Institutions and scientists presented, in the attempt of averting the consequences of the war in Yugoslavia.
The connection between theoretical teaching and practical social activity is a basic presupposition of a many-sided, mental, practical and social development of young people’s personality. It is the presupposition of a mental maturity through the live connection of science with its application; of a practical maturity, through the combination of mental work and practice and the cultivation of a practical spirit that rejects verbalism and formalism of knowledge; of a social maturity, through the apprehension of business world and social relations.
For the above to be realized, it is necessary that our university tutors, apart from the high level scientific knowledge on their object, have to obtain systematic knowledge on pedagogic methodology.
In this context, student syndicalism, the daily efforts of the students’ movement represent a basic factor of socialization of young people. Today’s authority is afraid of the conscious club activity of students, the force that students’ movement may reveal in combination with a bigger maturity. A maturity that comes from the deep comprehension of social relations as a result of a tighter connection of Universities with capitalistic production that has been imposed by itself. This is the reason which with intense meters promotes the manipulation of youth movement and the restriction of students’ syndical freedom.
C3. Unity of language and university studies
Another direction, of supposedly the connection and unification of science, through the named ones “intersectional” and personalised studies, the free lesson cycles from various scientific objects and areas, has been presented, for the last few years, as a modern necessity of university studies.
Is it about an objective inclination that urges from the progress of science in combination with social needs? What should be our opinion on this subject that often comes up in daily university life, with the pretence of the invasion of study schedules, like those of EPC (Educational Programs of Choice), Open University, and the composition of new graduate specialty schedules? How could consequences on the progress of science be retracted from the restriction of scientific objects and research?
It is not simple to give an answer to these questions, so a small theoretical reference on the inclinations of progress of science, can be presented.
Nevertheless, “part and whole, are two categories that do not satisfy organic nature. Parts exist only in corpses”. With this phrase, Engels wants to say that as long as we examine things statically, one apart from another, we cannot conceive their substance, because natural (and social) reality is just a system of interdependences and fermentations. This mutual interaction is exactly, the movement, the way materials exist. Study of natural phenomena on their movement and mutual relations (the dialectical one) is the basic characteristic of modern developed science, which superceded its static, mechanistic level. Differential thought, for example, allowed to natural sciences to picture procedures mathematically, and not only situations. Relativity is the theory which examines characteristics of bodies and natural fields in their situation of moving in time and place.
So, besides segmentation and entrenchment of sciences there is the reverse procedure too. In relation to sciences, and their interdependence and unification, a characteristic example comprises the electromagnetic equations of Maxwell that revealed the unity of electricity, magnetism, light and thermal radiation. Inclination of unification of sciences is amplified by productive needs, as well. Modern technological sciences are a beneficial field of meeting of most sciences and branches of technique. Decipherment, for example, of the human genome, was done thanks to the conjunction of modern knowledge of computers with the existing knowledge in genetics.
The entire history of sciences is pervaded by a dialectical combination of the procedures of differentiation and unification. Inclination of unification is, though, the dynamic element of the dialectical couple. Unity of knowledge is based on the unity of world that consists in its corporeity. So, the more science develops, deepens, and approaches faithfully reality, the more the inclination of unification strengthens. Science develops more and more dialectically, because natural and social reality is dialectical.
Science’s future as much as today’s knowledge, allows us to imagine a society which will get over the compulsions of today’s development level of productive forces, and overcome the limits between separate branches. In a unified science, it is orientated to humans with all the features of its completely developed creative abilities.
In the context of this general inclination, every science evolves a theoretical synthesis that often gets out of the limits of problems that generates its object. Modern science shines from a more global and many-sided examination of its object, passing through the orientation related to the study object to the orientation related to the study problem. Study, for example, of the problem of environmental protection demands cooperation of various scientific branches, is a joint system among technical sciences, chemistry, biology, geological sciences, medicine, and economics etc.
A researcher needs to examine the object of the special research, by taking its connection with the whole, as a connection of the searchable object with the objects of research of other sciences. Besides, it often happens for a science to affect the development of another. This is a fact that comes simply from the adoption in an area of learning of thoughts and ideas that come from others, sometimes directly and sometimes through the parallel transposition of basic determinisms.
Unfortunately, nowadays, the scientific philosophical consideration of the science’s achievements barely happens. However, a truly scientific worldview does not remain static, but has to be continuously renewed through the problems of special sciences. The scientific worldview, without the analysis, interpretation and generalisation of their achievements, cannot progress and fulfill its role by helping representatives of special sciences. This is an inhibitory factor for the progress and the orientations of science as well, that can be overruled by the development of the dialectical, materialistic idea of the world, inside Universities and not only out of them. The idea that can affect beneficially the whole schedule of University studies, as a presupposition to get over the sterility which accompanies the entrenchment of every scientific object.
In this context, for the new specialties that will need via-segmental composition of undergraduate studies, it is necessary to be based on a basic department, which will comprise the stem and will have the main responsibility for the whole study schedule. To conclude, via-segmental cooperation is necessary in the level of graduate studies, which lead to doctorate and to the level of via-departmental researching schedules. “Via-segmental” synthesis to the level of undergraduate studies, in the way that is today promoted, leads to corruption of knowledge and comprises an element of accommodation of studies in a simple practical training.
This ascertainment does not release Higher Education from its obligation to help students, from the undergraduate level, to understand, through teaching of every lesson of the study schedule, the interconnection of knowledge, and to recognize, through the procedure of studying science, the general laws of natural and social evolution and of human role through it, and to realize-in a few words-the content of their special object as a part of the whole. Transmission of the students’ ability to think scientifically means that they learn to think dialectically.
It would help students to obtain idea about history and research methods of their science, and to understand its position in the system of human knowledge and, in general, of the material and mental life of society, and the introduction of an epistemological lesson, somewhere in the middle of study schedule, when each student will have obtained a more clear idea of the object that studies.
Definitely, the development of science cannot be served in supposedly “small and flexible” universities. Universities have to be great units of production and transmission of knowledge that will connect and develop a wide cycle of coherent scientific branches, in the basis of three big teams in which there are assembled harmonically, in general science: physics, social and technical sciences.
Development of Universities has to be in such a way to reassure the bigger accumulation of knowledge and the gathering of a big differentiated and specialized staff. They cannot be found extemporaneously, with only three or four departments and those scattered in every town and island, neither with primitive structure and presuppositions nor with random scientific staff and absent students. Even our bigger Universities cannot offer “high level Higher Education” in two-fold - in relation with today - students, with the same structure and less financing. And, of course, “appendices” of the chain of foreign stores cannot be considered as Universities, as the “modern” model of fast-food education, or Public “universities” want them, having as a presupposition a board and few lines of desks. Even more, science cannot develop through the wrong integration of market that wants, for example, the pedagogic of technical education to be subsumed in Economic Universities.
C.4. The succession of knowledge. Continual education and Open University
As has already been mentioned, knowledge is a complex upward course of a reflection of reality in human conscience, the objectivity of which is put under control via experiment and application in social life. Within this evolutionary course the older – confirmed by experience - knowledge, can turn out to be insufficient, limited, but can never decline. The history of sciences has a dialectical continuity and succession, and is not affected by strict separations. It is a procedure which is enforced by conflicts created in various scientific fields, the surpassing of which leads to a new situation, to a qualitative change. Even this qualitative change, however, within science, contains elements belonging to the previous stage. There are several examples in modern science where the previous stage of its development is contained in the next, since new theories have got to explain not just the newly appearing problems, but also the sum of old problems successfully described by older theories. (For example, modern physics did not cancel classical physics, despite the qualitative difference between the two. The quantities and laws of modern physics coincide with those of classical physics, in the case we refer to speeds very small in relation to light speed.) And of course, those revolutionary changes in science and the scientific subject cannot be performed on an everyday basis.
Scientific knowledge, in any case, is neither subject to waste nor loses its value because of being put to practice. What can indeed be devalued is the vulnerable, practical and typical, “skill”, which is affected by the slightest, even, technological change.
Therefore, the deep knowledge of the laws defining the subject examined by each science, and its connection to the general system of human knowledge and practice, forms a solid base for the scientists to be able to comprehend and assimilate the evolution taking place in their area, even change specialties without having to start from scratch every time.
The current capitalist organisation of labour, which demands “flexible”, with no protection, work relations, and an exhausting unfixed schedule of work for the majority of young scientists, does not allow any essential solution to the problem of continual education. The graduates have also this burden to carry, they have to sacrifice their leisure time, and replace their knowledge on a high price, attending occasional seminars, usually of low level in University (KEK), of professional organisations of private agents. The developments show that this type of “life-long training” will be general and of compulsory character, as one more source of capitalist profit. In its context Institutes of “life-long training” will be added (they will be established within Universities) with the cheap specifications of EPC they come to replace.
The function of the Open University is a case that has to be assigned to the Universities themselves, which will have to organise and adapt the programs of almost all scientific subjects taught in them, even of those demanding laboratory courses, to the needs of their working students. Students will of course be able to attend the biggest part of the courses on the Internet or through correspondence, but will also be in position to receive training on the laboratory courses within University, and will simultaneously have the right to participate in every aspect of academic life.
C.5. Science: Creation and property of humanity
The government, instead of properly using the money of the tax-paying Greek people for the development of science and Higher Education according to the people’s needs, benefits monopolies which, in haste, are invited to fund Universities, with the criterion of how to fulfill their interests.
Securing brave financial support from state finances to cover the sum of the needs and activities of the Universities is of crucial importance for them to escape the control of monopoly interests. It is the condition that guarantees high quality university education for all students and not just those who can pay for it; for the presuppositions to be formed for the equal value of all Universities, and for the elimination of differentiation and academic “competition”.
Public and Free Universities means Universities free of fees at all levels, with free books, food and shelter for all students, and scholarships for all postgraduate students. It also means development of their overall foundation by the guarantee of building and laboratory equipment, libraries and the necessary scientific, administrative and technical staff, which today is the necessary presupposition for the preservation of the Higher level of Universities, after their abrupt opening to the masses. Guarantee of the exclusive occupation of the teaching and research staff of the Universities, combined with the covering of their modern needs concerning payments. It means a broad expansion of the functions and the role of the Universities so that they will cover a series of new needs, such as the constant education of their graduates, Open -for all working people- University, the organisation of various cultural and social activities etc.
Communal money (Operational Programme “Education and Initial Vocational Training”, OPEIVT) cannot be the basic source of aid for the performance of various activities, since it poses certain conditions as concerns the goals and orientations of its use. The financial aid coming from E.U. programs promotes the policy of the undermining of Greek Universities and that of their reactionary reconstruction. The money from (OPEIVT) is expected to be included in the state budget and be distributed to the Universities in order for them to use it according to their needs. At the same time the increase of state financing on research is necessary. The uncontrolled special account of the research programs must be embodied in a modern system of public accounting.
The Unique, Public and Free character of the University cannot be secured, when, together with public Universities, also private ones exist. It is necessary that private “Universities” cease to exist, and that any attempt at privatization of public ones is obstructed.
The social orientation of the Universities and of research is directly connected to the need for radical change in Greek society for social administration of the basic and collected means of production, so that the connection of Universities and university research with production is positional on the right basis. The support of a planned economic development in favor of the people, the developments of the production powers and, above all, the development of the people and science whose goal is to serve them.
The majority of the Educational Teaching Staff has to face the threatening dilemma of either subordination or marginalisation. Universities’ emancipation from monopoly control is a basic condition for the democratic function of Universities, and the guarantee of the democratic rights of the scientific staff, the students and the working people.
Universities in cooperation with society (not with anti-popular private interests) have got to determine the content and the aims of their action. In this context, democratic control of the Universities is necessary; control of their function and activities performed by the whole of the scientific community and from the people, through elected representatives from different fields of the social life. Universities’ administration does not mean release of Universities from social responsibility, but freedom from the dominant monopoly interests.
Democracy in Universities also demands an essential function and role of collective procedures, which today is only routine, legitimating the uncontrolled action of various stereotypical structures. Research committees, for example, administer amounts of money far greater than those of the state budget, their distribution completely lacking control. Democracy in Universities presupposes equality of rights and an expanding participation of the people acting within them in all matters, and with no distribution of duties and abilities. It also presupposes the abolition of “flexible” work relations, an abolition expanding to the scientific-research staff, of the control and manipulation mechanisms of academic educators, with the change in the mode of evolution of the two lower stages, the obstruction of imposing an evaluation system actually aiming at the discipline of the educators towards market mechanisms and their representatives within universities.
- Notion of science
So, science could be defined as the human activity for development of new knowledge through the expansion of laws of objective reality and their theoretical systemization.
Knowledge is the reflection of objective reality by the human. It is not a simple reflection of a mirror, immediate and complete. If things were the way they seem to be, then science would be useless, Marx said. This procedure consists of a series of removals, formulations, ideations, notions, laws etc., that embrace, approximately, universal laws of nature and society, which move timelessly and develop. So, cognitive procedure is an endless procedure, during which, correspondence between knowledge and reality is getting more and more approximate, without being completely identified.
- Specific difference of Higher Education
In terms of this, university, Higher level of education is, certainly, professional learning, but it is not a simple one. Its specific characteristic, the one that divides it from previous levels of education, is its linkage with research and attraction of students in a creative, scientific, researching work.
It is obvious, how negative, for the preparation of young scientists and the level of Higher education, is the fact that research in our country is in a low level and outside of universities. What about now that new structure and- defined by the ‘’market’’- content of studies, forbid students of even this restricted researching activity that university departments and sectors take on.
So, substantial presupposition of Higher Education is the transmission to students of the ability to think and act scientifically and not just the tutoring of methods of usurpation of knowledge, of its repetition or request in its sources, as it is happening today. That is, the familiarity of students during their studies, with scientific work, through forms of self-existent project, that helps in development of thought, activity and initiative, and in acquiring methods of scientific research. At the beginning, through simpler forms, such as annual projects, that can be reviews from publications and scientific writings, or small experimental researches. At the next level, with more and more complex forms, such as specific scientific seminars, where current achievements of science of the corresponding specialty and modern methods of scientific researches, will be examined, in which students will be called so as to introduce various issues and participate sprightfully in the conversations. At the final level, through diplomatic projects, students will have to obtain the ability of conducting experiments or researches, analyzing their results, subtractive processing of their most substantial elements and generalization of conclusions. They have to access, that is, methodology of research, process of knowledge from the only (specific) to especial and then to the general. In many occasions, these projects may be, in fact, scientific researches.
- Basic presuppositions of structure and content of Higher studies
As for graduate studies, they must belong in a unified cycle and lead exclusively to a doctorate. Their distinction from undergraduate studies is that graduate studies pay more attention in the production of new knowledge, whereas undergraduate ones pay attention in the obtainment of the already produced knowledge. This phrase is used, because familiarity with researching procedure is a basic presupposition of undergraduate, such as, correspondingly, attendance of lessons cycle, tutoring, is an element of graduate cycle, as well, that lead to doctorate.
In this context, Higher Institutions have to be big educational and scientific centers, in which substantial researching assignment is conducted. Development of science in universities creates the basis for the education of especial scientists of high specialty, reproduction of their scientific staff, and for the approximation of principles and methods of completion of didactic and pedagogic assignment. Conducting research is, therefore, of primary importance activity of Higher Institutions. Orientation of research in useful for the people purposes, disposal of resources for university research that is fundamental and applied, transposition of attention of researching project from the unapproachable monopolistic research centers and laboratories to universities, departments and their sectors, in conditions of total transparency for the wide propagation of results, social control and its connection with education, are determinant for a high-level Higher Education, in the service of people.
C2. Social role of science and Higher Education
- Connection between University Education and production
Because science is above all a medium for the transformation of the world. We do not study to study but mainly to change wittingly the world that surrounds us, to adjust it in human standards. ‘’Reshaping of nature and society by the human is the most direct fundament of human knowledge, and mentality of human advanced by the time he learned the material’’. For this reason, practice ‘’work, incessant material creation of people, in one word, this production is the basis of the today’s entire sensible world’’. Even most abstract sciences have their root in practical problems that humanity confronted historically, in economic purposes and in attempt to enforce class dominance.
Needs of production, needs of the socioeconomic system in general set priorities, purposes and problems that science has to confront. Since the era of industrial revolution, when capitalism changed science to an immediate productive force, from the moment that productive procedure constitutes, in a bigger and bigger level, a technological application of science (by its embodiment in productive media, in organization and direction forms of work, in cultural –technological level of workers), connection between science and production becomes tighter and tighter.
Therefore, our aim is not to detach Higher Education from production, but to connect production -the universities, too- with the real social needs, with the incessant development of material and mental level of people. This has to be the social role of universities and not their reshaping in accessory of ‘’market’’, so as to raise profits and authority of monopolies.
Actually, what is going on Universities, is not anything else but connection with the antisocial needs of capitalistic production. What could be the point, for example, of a European slogan of ‘’learning of learning’’ and of ‘’life-long learning’’, if not an attempt to disguise a reality of learning to learn, since the most time the majority of graduates will be unemployed?
Besides, action is not only the basis of knowledge but a criterion for its truth as well. In the process of this practice, our notions and theories are controlled and the false ones are being rejected. Correctness of reflection of reality can be ascertained only inside the reality.
The above markings lead to certain criteria about the composition of university studies. Mainly, the lead to the basic criterion of shaping the specialties of university studies, that can only be scientific but combine, as well, scientism of the object with the real social needs that is going to serve.
- Relation between theory and application. Fundamental and applied sciences
Nowadays, relevant independence of theory from action advanced in relation with the past and this exact event created the theoretical presuppositions for new applications in production and foundation of a sequence of new industrial branches. Unity of scientific theoretical knowledge and action represents an indirect unity. Detachment of theoretical from immediate practical purposes is an compulsory condition for science to get over limits of experience.
Neither action nor applied research must be interpreted as empiricism, as a subordinate, nonscientific work. Presupposition of the applied research is, also, the theoretical research, discovering of specific determinism and not only a simple immediate application of abstract theoretical notions and laws.
On the basis of the apportionment of research, sciences are generally divided fundamental or theoretical and to practical or applied depending on the direction and the direct relationship with production.
Fundamental sciences examine laws that direct behavior and interaction of basic structures of nature, society and perception, which they study in ‘’clear’’ form and not with the exclusive purpose of a possible application. So, fundamental sciences can be introduced in the enlistment of sciences that Engel’s maid based on the forms of material movement and also, their mutual transformation are the object of their study. Direct purpose of practical sciences is the utilization of results of fundamental sciences to solve not only cognitive but, also, social and practical problems.
Among theoretical and practical sciences, there are no sinitic walls.
Unity of theoretical and practical sciences consists in the fact that theoretical sciences have their origin in practice and return back to it, through their applications. Often, for example, through applied research, fundamental notions could come out and, reversely, basic research could lead directly to inventions. Generally, in the history of science we will repeatedly see an interfeeding relationship among theoretical and applied knowledge where new perspectives of examination of theoretical research lead to the creation of new applied branches. For this reason theoretical sciences can not be implied independent from technological ones and theory can not be detached from each application, neither the reverse. Practice declines and degenerates when it is not fed by abstract thought.
- Problem of T.E.I.
This distinction has class character and its roots are deep in the history, in the bigger part of which the two branches of technical and scientific knowledge went separately. Although, technique nowadays, is a product of deep development of scientific knowledge and has become science, technology, the devaluation of technique is maintained till today. In previous levels of education, technique is expressed by the division in universities and T.E.I. university-non university.
Although, in the process of their development, several T.E.I. got over their principal destination and we can say that they offer a satisfactory for the Higher Education level of studies, substructure and didactic staff. Therefore, conditions advance so as to stop from being debase of Universities or distinct category of an aggregate of ‘’Higher’’ education. Development of technology that T.E.I. serve but, also, social need for a Higher, scientific level of productive staff lead, de facto, to the withdrawal of their separation from universities. Though, they still confront serious problems. Problems like those, begin from the restricted character of the object of their studies that in most cases comprise subdivisions of objects of universities departments, problems of substructure and didactic staff, since in the major percentage, tutorship is covered by emergent staff or staff that does not have the necessary qualifications for the attribute of university tutor. Progress presses for a solution to be found. A solution that will pay attention to problems that exist in universities, as well, in a procedure of composition of a Unified Higher Education.
- Problem of Universities
On the other side, we have the composition of departments of general, seminar character that offer flavors from a wide variety of scientific branches and areas, e.g. department of sciences of sea, department of sciences of art, department of environment etc. That is departments that are detached from any social utility and from the access to any profession. Simultaneously, universities hide an older sin. A great number of their departments has a theoretical character, a detached from action and with an indefinite social assignment. And if this, in the period of its creation, seventy or more years ago, when knowledge was less and technology was not in the today’s level of development, might be right, today is out of date. Characteristic example comprises the named ‘’professorial’’ schools (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Philosophy etc) which do not give to their graduates neither necessary pedagogic skills to teach in middle education nor do they prepare them completely for a sequence of other sectors of production. So, they leave the way open to new monopolistic settings, for transfer of scientific specialty to a graduate level and detachment of undergraduate studies from the profession. As soon as positions of tutors in schools diminish, as a consequence of the policy that removes prematurely students from education and reduces expenses, the problem of unemployment of graduates of these departments will grow.
Unfortunately in these departments new ones were added, as well, such as department of Methodology, History and Theory of Science, various departments of Geography and several others that although, their object of studies is scientific, they lead with a mathematic accuracy their graduates to unemployment and to contradistinctions with other specialties, about who is going to teach first the same type of lessons at school.
Creation of new departments and reformation of the old schedules must take into consideration the economy of our country, in the potential of a complete development to the benefit of people. Development of a series of fundamental sciences does not necessarily pass through the creation of productive departments of researchers, but through the general departments of university schools and the graduate degrees which lead to a doctorate.
- Procedure of composition of Unified Higher Education
The situation, through a process of continuous deterioration has come to an end. The only solution that may exist is the reshaping of Higher Education by the modulation of a Unified, Public and Free Higher Education, without study cycles and antiscientific divisions to correspond really to its social role.
Basic presupposition of this reshaping is the reexamination and redefinition of scientific objects of departments of Higher education, on the basis of real social needs and needs of development of science. This clarification represents what the scientific object deals with, what studies, which is the cycle of basic problems that solves. A clarification that will, of course, take into account the shaped reality without being subjected to it. In this context, parallel to the shaping of study schedules of universities, radical changes are possibly needed that will promote today’s reality of university studies. Characteristic example is the need of modulation of unified Pedagogic schools, with pedagogic departments that will secure, simultaneously with the specialty of teaching, the pedagogic adequacy, as well, not as a subordinate skill to be acquired in an additional study cycle, but as a basic scientific background of the tutor.
- Criteria of definition of scientific object
Generally, scientists are defined and shined from each other by the object of their research, which records socioeconomic needs that science serves. Definition of scientific object is necessary for people to understand the position of every science inside the system of knowledge. This position does not remain inalterable, as much as given science, but, also, as a system of the rest of sciences, develops. Definition of scientific object still presents a lot of difficulties, because the marking of issues of its research is not at all simple. For what reason are these issues the object of this specific science, which are their qualitative differences from other issues, excluded from its field? Moreover, definition of scientific object must not restrict the possibilities of its development, so it has to be examined continuously.
Besides its complexity, the solution of this issue is of determinative importance for Higher Education and the future of its graduates. The solution that can come through a broad discussion which has to start by today, among the interested, tutors, didactic staff of T.E.I., scientists and students.
On the basis of defined scientific objects of departments that defines their social function too, there may be a solution to the other problem of professional rights, as well.
- Answer to the problem of T.E.I.
For the fulfillment of these three basic conditions, departments of T.E.I. must be equal to departments of universities of Higher Education, withal the presuppositions of structure, content of studies, their connection with research and society. However, due to the fact that education contributes to social inallocation of work, it is obvious that this procedure cannot move independently from the general planning of needs of production and society.
Government’s logic (and that of other political forces), that asks for evaluation of T.E.I., with the conditions of “market”, find as opponents (because it will lead unavoidably) departments that their object of studies has the potential of an important contribution to the development of productive forces of our country, outside of Higher Education. Moreover, another proposition that finds us opponents is the one suggesting T.E.I as “university” and “non-Higher”. To all intents, this proposition recommends introduction of professional education in universities, transfers existent differences and oppositions in University and leads to disorganization of its structure.
Professional Education must be acquired in a distinct system of Public Professional Schools, which will offer a high level professional education by developing all those specialties that do not require Higher Education and, nowadays, though necessary, are not covered by any level of the educational system.
- Modulation of social conscience of tomorrow’s scientists
In the position of an insistently and systematically cultivated conscience, the only answer is the presentation of another idea about the social role of a scientist. An apprehension that wants him to think and act scientifically and in the social level. To follow the historical determinants of socioeconomic progress, which set him in the side of working class and other, repressed layers, in the fight for a new organization of society, the development of which will be based on the scientifically fundamental planning. Even more now the great majority of scientists are introduced organically in the working class. Therefore, the solution of the problem of the role of the scientist lies in how opposing social forces comprehend the purpose of science. The purpose of science could not be the “competitiveness” of enterprises and amplification of dominance of the few over the many, but the revealing of social, economic, mental level of the total of people, “the release of human existence from the toil”. We study so as to change consciously the world and not to maintain the old one, which gets worse the older it gets. Here is where common benefits of university tutors, of students and the entire people, about science and universities-levers of social progress, meet.
Basic presupposition for the modulation, to new people, of a deep apprehension of their role, presupposition for the connection of Higher Education with the real social needs, is the reformation of study schedules so as to include, together with the complete deep knowledge of the object of every science, the cultivation of a general scientific worldview and bio-theory. This is not a simple addition in the study schedule of lessons in social sciences, which are instructed, with no connection with the general content of the schedule, by reproducing unscientific and out-of-date theories. The transmission of a scientific worldview and a dialectical way of thinking, is a 100% concern of the study schedule and teaching methods, that must be formed in a such way to reveal the interconnection of scientific knowledge and the introduction of especial laws in the general ones, and to point the position of every science in the general system not only of science, but also, of production and social life. This fact presupposes, of course, the teaching of basic social sciences (philosophy, political economy, sociology and history) and, also, the transmission of theoretical knowledge for the way of organizing and managing the social production.
A second significant aspect of the study schedule and the function of Higher Educational Institutions is the creation of presuppositions of connection between theoretical teaching and practical social activity, in and out of the University. In University it can be created by laboratories and a wide utilisation of modern technology, which today, though it is deified, in several cases is non-existent even in its most primitive, traditional forms. Out of University, by the direct participation of students in social productive work, not for them to be familiarized with submission, as it is going on nowadays, but to transfer to them the ability to take on its direction tomorrow for progressive purposes. By practicing, under the guidance of the University, which will begin from the job of a simple worker and will reach – at the end of studies- the one of an independent scientific assignment, by connecting University with all sides of social and mental activity, its participation in social life for the enlightening and not for the obfuscation of reality. Characteristic examples of such a positive action is the opposition that certain scientific Institutions and scientists presented, in the attempt of averting the consequences of the war in Yugoslavia.
The connection between theoretical teaching and practical social activity is a basic presupposition of a many-sided, mental, practical and social development of young people’s personality. It is the presupposition of a mental maturity through the live connection of science with its application; of a practical maturity, through the combination of mental work and practice and the cultivation of a practical spirit that rejects verbalism and formalism of knowledge; of a social maturity, through the apprehension of business world and social relations.
For the above to be realized, it is necessary that our university tutors, apart from the high level scientific knowledge on their object, have to obtain systematic knowledge on pedagogic methodology.
In this context, student syndicalism, the daily efforts of the students’ movement represent a basic factor of socialization of young people. Today’s authority is afraid of the conscious club activity of students, the force that students’ movement may reveal in combination with a bigger maturity. A maturity that comes from the deep comprehension of social relations as a result of a tighter connection of Universities with capitalistic production that has been imposed by itself. This is the reason which with intense meters promotes the manipulation of youth movement and the restriction of students’ syndical freedom.
C3. Unity of language and university studies
Another direction, of supposedly the connection and unification of science, through the named ones “intersectional” and personalised studies, the free lesson cycles from various scientific objects and areas, has been presented, for the last few years, as a modern necessity of university studies.
Is it about an objective inclination that urges from the progress of science in combination with social needs? What should be our opinion on this subject that often comes up in daily university life, with the pretence of the invasion of study schedules, like those of EPC (Educational Programs of Choice), Open University, and the composition of new graduate specialty schedules? How could consequences on the progress of science be retracted from the restriction of scientific objects and research?
It is not simple to give an answer to these questions, so a small theoretical reference on the inclinations of progress of science, can be presented.
- Unity and differentiation of science
Nevertheless, “part and whole, are two categories that do not satisfy organic nature. Parts exist only in corpses”. With this phrase, Engels wants to say that as long as we examine things statically, one apart from another, we cannot conceive their substance, because natural (and social) reality is just a system of interdependences and fermentations. This mutual interaction is exactly, the movement, the way materials exist. Study of natural phenomena on their movement and mutual relations (the dialectical one) is the basic characteristic of modern developed science, which superceded its static, mechanistic level. Differential thought, for example, allowed to natural sciences to picture procedures mathematically, and not only situations. Relativity is the theory which examines characteristics of bodies and natural fields in their situation of moving in time and place.
So, besides segmentation and entrenchment of sciences there is the reverse procedure too. In relation to sciences, and their interdependence and unification, a characteristic example comprises the electromagnetic equations of Maxwell that revealed the unity of electricity, magnetism, light and thermal radiation. Inclination of unification of sciences is amplified by productive needs, as well. Modern technological sciences are a beneficial field of meeting of most sciences and branches of technique. Decipherment, for example, of the human genome, was done thanks to the conjunction of modern knowledge of computers with the existing knowledge in genetics.
The entire history of sciences is pervaded by a dialectical combination of the procedures of differentiation and unification. Inclination of unification is, though, the dynamic element of the dialectical couple. Unity of knowledge is based on the unity of world that consists in its corporeity. So, the more science develops, deepens, and approaches faithfully reality, the more the inclination of unification strengthens. Science develops more and more dialectically, because natural and social reality is dialectical.
Science’s future as much as today’s knowledge, allows us to imagine a society which will get over the compulsions of today’s development level of productive forces, and overcome the limits between separate branches. In a unified science, it is orientated to humans with all the features of its completely developed creative abilities.
In the context of this general inclination, every science evolves a theoretical synthesis that often gets out of the limits of problems that generates its object. Modern science shines from a more global and many-sided examination of its object, passing through the orientation related to the study object to the orientation related to the study problem. Study, for example, of the problem of environmental protection demands cooperation of various scientific branches, is a joint system among technical sciences, chemistry, biology, geological sciences, medicine, and economics etc.
A researcher needs to examine the object of the special research, by taking its connection with the whole, as a connection of the searchable object with the objects of research of other sciences. Besides, it often happens for a science to affect the development of another. This is a fact that comes simply from the adoption in an area of learning of thoughts and ideas that come from others, sometimes directly and sometimes through the parallel transposition of basic determinisms.
- Necessity of a scientific worldview
Unfortunately, nowadays, the scientific philosophical consideration of the science’s achievements barely happens. However, a truly scientific worldview does not remain static, but has to be continuously renewed through the problems of special sciences. The scientific worldview, without the analysis, interpretation and generalisation of their achievements, cannot progress and fulfill its role by helping representatives of special sciences. This is an inhibitory factor for the progress and the orientations of science as well, that can be overruled by the development of the dialectical, materialistic idea of the world, inside Universities and not only out of them. The idea that can affect beneficially the whole schedule of University studies, as a presupposition to get over the sterility which accompanies the entrenchment of every scientific object.
- “Via-segmental” studies and via-departmental research
In this context, for the new specialties that will need via-segmental composition of undergraduate studies, it is necessary to be based on a basic department, which will comprise the stem and will have the main responsibility for the whole study schedule. To conclude, via-segmental cooperation is necessary in the level of graduate studies, which lead to doctorate and to the level of via-departmental researching schedules. “Via-segmental” synthesis to the level of undergraduate studies, in the way that is today promoted, leads to corruption of knowledge and comprises an element of accommodation of studies in a simple practical training.
This ascertainment does not release Higher Education from its obligation to help students, from the undergraduate level, to understand, through teaching of every lesson of the study schedule, the interconnection of knowledge, and to recognize, through the procedure of studying science, the general laws of natural and social evolution and of human role through it, and to realize-in a few words-the content of their special object as a part of the whole. Transmission of the students’ ability to think scientifically means that they learn to think dialectically.
It would help students to obtain idea about history and research methods of their science, and to understand its position in the system of human knowledge and, in general, of the material and mental life of society, and the introduction of an epistemological lesson, somewhere in the middle of study schedule, when each student will have obtained a more clear idea of the object that studies.
- Collective organisation of the activity in Universities
Definitely, the development of science cannot be served in supposedly “small and flexible” universities. Universities have to be great units of production and transmission of knowledge that will connect and develop a wide cycle of coherent scientific branches, in the basis of three big teams in which there are assembled harmonically, in general science: physics, social and technical sciences.
Development of Universities has to be in such a way to reassure the bigger accumulation of knowledge and the gathering of a big differentiated and specialized staff. They cannot be found extemporaneously, with only three or four departments and those scattered in every town and island, neither with primitive structure and presuppositions nor with random scientific staff and absent students. Even our bigger Universities cannot offer “high level Higher Education” in two-fold - in relation with today - students, with the same structure and less financing. And, of course, “appendices” of the chain of foreign stores cannot be considered as Universities, as the “modern” model of fast-food education, or Public “universities” want them, having as a presupposition a board and few lines of desks. Even more, science cannot develop through the wrong integration of market that wants, for example, the pedagogic of technical education to be subsumed in Economic Universities.
C.4. The succession of knowledge. Continual education and Open University
- The theory of the explosion of scientific knowledge
As has already been mentioned, knowledge is a complex upward course of a reflection of reality in human conscience, the objectivity of which is put under control via experiment and application in social life. Within this evolutionary course the older – confirmed by experience - knowledge, can turn out to be insufficient, limited, but can never decline. The history of sciences has a dialectical continuity and succession, and is not affected by strict separations. It is a procedure which is enforced by conflicts created in various scientific fields, the surpassing of which leads to a new situation, to a qualitative change. Even this qualitative change, however, within science, contains elements belonging to the previous stage. There are several examples in modern science where the previous stage of its development is contained in the next, since new theories have got to explain not just the newly appearing problems, but also the sum of old problems successfully described by older theories. (For example, modern physics did not cancel classical physics, despite the qualitative difference between the two. The quantities and laws of modern physics coincide with those of classical physics, in the case we refer to speeds very small in relation to light speed.) And of course, those revolutionary changes in science and the scientific subject cannot be performed on an everyday basis.
Scientific knowledge, in any case, is neither subject to waste nor loses its value because of being put to practice. What can indeed be devalued is the vulnerable, practical and typical, “skill”, which is affected by the slightest, even, technological change.
Therefore, the deep knowledge of the laws defining the subject examined by each science, and its connection to the general system of human knowledge and practice, forms a solid base for the scientists to be able to comprehend and assimilate the evolution taking place in their area, even change specialties without having to start from scratch every time.
- Continual education
The current capitalist organisation of labour, which demands “flexible”, with no protection, work relations, and an exhausting unfixed schedule of work for the majority of young scientists, does not allow any essential solution to the problem of continual education. The graduates have also this burden to carry, they have to sacrifice their leisure time, and replace their knowledge on a high price, attending occasional seminars, usually of low level in University (KEK), of professional organisations of private agents. The developments show that this type of “life-long training” will be general and of compulsory character, as one more source of capitalist profit. In its context Institutes of “life-long training” will be added (they will be established within Universities) with the cheap specifications of EPC they come to replace.
- Open University
The function of the Open University is a case that has to be assigned to the Universities themselves, which will have to organise and adapt the programs of almost all scientific subjects taught in them, even of those demanding laboratory courses, to the needs of their working students. Students will of course be able to attend the biggest part of the courses on the Internet or through correspondence, but will also be in position to receive training on the laboratory courses within University, and will simultaneously have the right to participate in every aspect of academic life.
C.5. Science: Creation and property of humanity
- The social character of science
- Public and Free Higher Education: Presupposition for its unified character
The government, instead of properly using the money of the tax-paying Greek people for the development of science and Higher Education according to the people’s needs, benefits monopolies which, in haste, are invited to fund Universities, with the criterion of how to fulfill their interests.
Securing brave financial support from state finances to cover the sum of the needs and activities of the Universities is of crucial importance for them to escape the control of monopoly interests. It is the condition that guarantees high quality university education for all students and not just those who can pay for it; for the presuppositions to be formed for the equal value of all Universities, and for the elimination of differentiation and academic “competition”.
Public and Free Universities means Universities free of fees at all levels, with free books, food and shelter for all students, and scholarships for all postgraduate students. It also means development of their overall foundation by the guarantee of building and laboratory equipment, libraries and the necessary scientific, administrative and technical staff, which today is the necessary presupposition for the preservation of the Higher level of Universities, after their abrupt opening to the masses. Guarantee of the exclusive occupation of the teaching and research staff of the Universities, combined with the covering of their modern needs concerning payments. It means a broad expansion of the functions and the role of the Universities so that they will cover a series of new needs, such as the constant education of their graduates, Open -for all working people- University, the organisation of various cultural and social activities etc.
Communal money (Operational Programme “Education and Initial Vocational Training”, OPEIVT) cannot be the basic source of aid for the performance of various activities, since it poses certain conditions as concerns the goals and orientations of its use. The financial aid coming from E.U. programs promotes the policy of the undermining of Greek Universities and that of their reactionary reconstruction. The money from (OPEIVT) is expected to be included in the state budget and be distributed to the Universities in order for them to use it according to their needs. At the same time the increase of state financing on research is necessary. The uncontrolled special account of the research programs must be embodied in a modern system of public accounting.
The Unique, Public and Free character of the University cannot be secured, when, together with public Universities, also private ones exist. It is necessary that private “Universities” cease to exist, and that any attempt at privatization of public ones is obstructed.
The social orientation of the Universities and of research is directly connected to the need for radical change in Greek society for social administration of the basic and collected means of production, so that the connection of Universities and university research with production is positional on the right basis. The support of a planned economic development in favor of the people, the developments of the production powers and, above all, the development of the people and science whose goal is to serve them.
- The democratic control of Universities
The majority of the Educational Teaching Staff has to face the threatening dilemma of either subordination or marginalisation. Universities’ emancipation from monopoly control is a basic condition for the democratic function of Universities, and the guarantee of the democratic rights of the scientific staff, the students and the working people.
Universities in cooperation with society (not with anti-popular private interests) have got to determine the content and the aims of their action. In this context, democratic control of the Universities is necessary; control of their function and activities performed by the whole of the scientific community and from the people, through elected representatives from different fields of the social life. Universities’ administration does not mean release of Universities from social responsibility, but freedom from the dominant monopoly interests.
Democracy in Universities also demands an essential function and role of collective procedures, which today is only routine, legitimating the uncontrolled action of various stereotypical structures. Research committees, for example, administer amounts of money far greater than those of the state budget, their distribution completely lacking control. Democracy in Universities presupposes equality of rights and an expanding participation of the people acting within them in all matters, and with no distribution of duties and abilities. It also presupposes the abolition of “flexible” work relations, an abolition expanding to the scientific-research staff, of the control and manipulation mechanisms of academic educators, with the change in the mode of evolution of the two lower stages, the obstruction of imposing an evaluation system actually aiming at the discipline of the educators towards market mechanisms and their representatives within universities.
e-mail:cpg@int.kke.gr