ABSTRACT

Technological level of industry in the Czech Republic is not corresponding with the tradition before the World War II when Czechoslovakia belonged to the first five most developed countries of Europe. It is also due to the system of engineering education that was adapted to the Soviet model of the fifties. Technical universities up to 1989 were closed to outstanding experts working without political involvement. Financial evaluation of a university teacher and high requirements on their work are not attractive for the best experts and influence the interest of the students in the engineering study as well.

Under new conditions it is necessary to define the role played by technical university, state and industry in order to support the rising trend of the technological level of the Czech industry, sharing a half of the GDP as a necessary condition for Czech Republic to be a full-value member of EU.

INTRODUCTION

Economic growth of the Czech Republic is a condition to enter the European Community. To speed it up is impossible without increasing export of the production with a high rate of VAT from HiTech area. As the natural resources of the country are limited, the technological standard is a decisive factor of competitivness of our products and so it influences the credit of our economics in foreign countries and possibility of standard of living and quality of life style of people in our country.

Autonomy gained by their universities after 1989 has remarkably increased their responsibilities for preparing engineers for the following millenium. However it does not mean that government is deprived of responsibility for creating terms corresponding to those supposed to be our competitors.

A new part must be played by industry interested in preparing highly educated young engineers but also a wide range of good courses of requalification and innovation organized by the universities. Mutual cooperation of all the subjects involved should be helpful for launching small companies technologically orientated.

DEVELOPMENT BY NOVEMBER 1989

I belong to the generation born during War and having grown up in the period of "building socialism". We had our models and for me those have always been people well understanding their businesses and capable to create and to gain the others keen on their branch. The position of pre-war Czechoslovakia in the level of industry in Europe and all over the world is the best answer to the question of the educational level of those times. If a professional career of a technical university teacher of that time is considered, we can find mostly individuals proficient with good professional engineering experience that was together with theoretical knowledge taken full advantage at the university. A lot of them were acting at the universities in the post-war period, too and they took care of education of their successors. The technical universities were institutions of high credit and the interest of the students stood many times over the capacity of the universities. The political purging of the fifties caused forced leavings of significant personalities also from technical universities and so closely connected with the planned Nazi pogroms during the World War II.

Political criteria meant important toils both in teaching staff and students. While the sixties meant a certain release in this trend, the following years of normalization after 1968 brought ideology and politicization into universities (technical as well), which were asked to enroll not only a limited number of applicants but also with regard to their political involvement. The professional career of the pedagogical staff was under political control, too. This process discouraged most experts working in industrial and research institutes which provided better financial and research conditions. Another reason was the backward technological equipment of the universities caused by underestimating of the creativity at universities and adopting the Soviet model according to that the task of universities was to educate and bring up and the basic research should be provided by the Czechoslovak Academy od Sciences.

International scientific cooperation was limited to the socialist countries and the chance to travel to the West was minimal because of obstruction both on the part of domestic authorities and the offer of the western partners.

Unlike the humanities there were great worries of industrial espionage in the technical sciences, which could influence a growing gap between the technical level of both parts of the world.

At the same time particularly the sixties in the West were the period of the second industrial revolution joined with coming of electronics, automation and computer technique, reflected in the sphere of universities, that faced a huge growth of students under the pressure of the government forcing the universities to increase their capacity. Mass terciary education was introduced giving up the tradition of Humboldt University, where students are members of the academic community built by creative scientific activity of the professors.

Also a remarkable growth of students was recorded in our country, in 1960-1965 nearly double (in the Czech Republic from 38 thousand up to 70 thousand) that was replaced by stagnation and introduction of undemocratic political criteria into university education, which were tools of political pressure.

Corruption, intervention, protection together with the rules discriminated students who were neither from working-class or farming families on one hand and on the other hand decreasing interest in the career of a university teacher meant an unevitable loss of motivation of the students and a complaint of education to mediocrity. An expected effect was not brought even by formal care of tallented students.

Also the permanent lack of interest and backward spatial, instrumental and material equipment affected the situation at the technical universities in the eighties. The model of unified secondary school caused that the students enrolled the university without suficient theoretical knowledge, they did not manage and left the school in two years. Next reason of the high drop out was the lack of interest in the study as the students repeatedly tried to get to a different type of university even if they lost one year of study. Directive system eliminated nonconfomn personalities from teaching staff, industry and research and required senseless activities from tallented people still teaching at the university.

Demotivation of the students meant passing exams with minimal effort and learning by heart instead of working on interesting projects.

Instead of teaching to independent work the attention was paid to increasing efficiency of the education by means of controlling the drop out its reduction and teachers were asked for tutoring the students as at the secondary level education. The attempt to minimalize the consequences was obvious instead of observing reasons. In comparison with highly developed European countries the gap was deeper of university education. Of course it would be unfair not to mention people, who studied with excellent results without losing their motivation and they worked with patience, precision necessary for the work of designer, technician and creative worker. Either it would be unfair to say that all the excellent teachers and personalities disappeared from the universities. Both of them were there but they were deformed on behalf of their personal career. Feedback of gradutes was not used as a measure for checking quality of engineering education. However, the profession of design engineer, designer and its social and financial evaluation in contrast with great responsibility and a long period of professional growth did not encourage the applicants. There were often easier ways to make a fortune, connected with political loyalty. Levelling of salaries did not lead to remarkable differentiation of the university graduates and those of secondary level - another loss of motivation and the result - stagnation of the level of industrial production and loss of competitive ability of the branches that used to be the country's pride.

The bases of insufficient interest in creative technical professions came back before 1989. It is worth mentioning that the results of analysis of the economic stagnation showed and increasing of the school budget to 1% of GDP was announced at the state conference just before November 1989.

DEVELOPMENT AFTER NOVEMBER 1989

The political changes and following economic reform were reflected in university education system, too. The legislative form of this process was the University Act in 1990, that limited the supervising position of the Ministry and gave back the autonomy and academic freedom to the universities.

From contemporary point of view visions of the economic reformers immediately after November 1989 can be considered as naive. Note of quick arrival of mining, metallurgy and heavy industrial dumping, necessity of splitting up the large enterprises and the main stress on the development of terciary sphere, banking, insurance and non-productive sphere without any basic strategies and visions of duration of this process influences young people in their career decisions in disadvantage of the technical branches. This process was accompanied with leaving of many capable developers, designers and technologists, that means creative personalities who took their chance and left for another sphere unbound to salary rules of a big enterprise.

Similarly the generation of thirty-year-old people at the beginning of their career of university teachers changed the demanding work of professional and scientific growth to quick career in dynamicly developing, non-productive sphere, in banking, foreign business.

It is not unusual that the PhD graduates after 8 years of study are employed in banks, because they were offered salaries twice or three times higher than those at universities or large industrial enterprises.

Huge tax evasions and dirty money have brought wealth to people without education, conscience, character and all that had impact on demotivation of students to demanding study. PhD students with their language and technical knowledge are welcome to foreign companies. Market orientation evocates persuasion that only economic knowledge and management create good conditions for success. Economics faculties face enormous interest of the best students while technical faculties decrease their requirements for entry examinations because of lack of applicants. The first year of study is often considered to be a kind of preparation for university study.

Many technical faculties support development of economic and management disciplines. These disciplines are of greatest interest to students and because there is liberalization, they can make their own choice of the fields they wish to study. It sometimes leads to the situation that some of the students who fail at their studies of economics are later on interested in studying technical fields in spite of the fact that they are not technically oriented. Before November 1989 hard manual work was glorified. But the situation has changed since then and the present glorification of management causes that it is the economists who are nowadays nominated into the top positions of important enterprises as well as into the state administration. As has been already mentioned, this attitude understandably causes that students are more interested in economics and management and no interest is taken in technical fields of study.

As for the technical activities, the life-long learning is a must and within them a wrong step is visible, controllable and it may cause in the best a low-grade product which no one will buy or, it may even endanger health and lives of people. E.g. in Japan the MBA education is not stressed at all and the managers there are engineers - technicians. They come out of the experience that engineer can easily learn the methods of managerial work on the basis of logical thinking while it can be difficult for a manager without any previous engineering education to obtain technical knowledge necessary for directing a technological complex. These rules are taken for granted in modern industrial countries. As for our country we will have to learn a lot to gain such an experience.

At present it looks as if we wanted to ignore professor Schumpeter's theory which says that innovations are the only real strength of economic development. By the way, professor Schumpeter from American Harvard was born in our country, in a Moravian city Tret, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics. His theory was proved right in a course of history. It says that it is the development of electronics, automatization, robotics and computerization, as well as informatics and artificial intelligence that leads to such a great progress in the industrial western countries. Understandably, the question is: Whose fault is the fact that due to the purely economic attitude the construction and development workplaces seem to be unprofitable, and that their liquidation will affect enterprise efficiency a couple of years later? The belief that new owners will be interested in a radical change of this situation has not been fulfilled. It means that it is not the owners but the managers who are expected to introduce innovations, which has been proved true by our hitherto development confirming the theses about dematerialization of property. It is sometimes sad and ironical that the positions of those successful Czech managers who managed to consolidate the unprofitable companies and repay the debts, are dismissed by the owners of these companies who prefer to hire their "own people". These "own people" are being hired not due to their extraordinary abilities, but as a form of a certain reward for some previous services. Isn't it grotesque that the public is persuaded about the necessity of increasing the price for gas to the same level as in Germany while the level of salaries in the budgetary sphere amounts e.g. for a university professor just 10% of his German colleague's salary? Isn't a manager also partly responsible for this state as his/her yearly income is fifteen times higher than a yearly income of a university professor or twenty times higher than a yearly income of a good designer? During last seven years many times I assisted our leading politicians with the presentations for our university students and teachers. More or less, the topic was all the same - the macroeconomic success of the Czech reform. In spite of the fact that I was trying hard many times, never did it happen that at least one of the politicians would take a stand in front of technicians and explain to them what role the Czech industry is to play, and also whether first-rate engineers - technicians are needed. I would not like these thoughts to be accepted as doubts about the good things that have been done in our country after November 1989. I would only like to speak openly about the reasons why our hopes in the positive growth of our industry efficiency and ability of competition have not been fulfilled yet. I think that similar views are expected with the representatives of both industry and government who are responsible for the educational system, science and development of technologies as well as for the industry and trade. Of course, the engineers - technicians also carry a big part of responsibility. It is first of all them who should be more active even beyond their fields of activity. They should acquire manager's abilities and they should take over a higher rate of responsibility for directing trade, operation, companies and the public sector. A university teacher has to have the key role in these changes. Heavy demands are put on him/her. He/she should not only obtain the engineering education and successful engineering training, but also a PhD. degree, or an equivalent scientific grade proving his/her abilities. He/she should be an author or a co-author of a significant engineering work, he/she should be able to create teaching programs utilizing the computer support, he/she should have pedagogical abilities, i.e. he/she should have not only great knowledge but he should also know how to teach. The question is whether we have such teachers. And in case we do, whether we may let them leave thoughtlessly. The status of a university professor is between the second and fourth places on the world's as well as on our country's scale. Well, how come that his/her income represents the income of a clerk? We can not tolerate the fact that after thirty year practice a university professor's monthly salary reaches its top 13,500 Czech crowns only (comparing with a monthly salary of a lawyer-beginner which reaches 14,500 Czech crowns). The problem is not only the total income level, which thanks to the 14 monthly salaries a year at present plus the so called personal evaluation creates about a 50% higher yearly income. The question is whether universities will have enough money to pay up these salaries at all. This problem should be taken into consideration and its solution should be the starting point for setting such a salary scale which ought to have clear criteria. I am afraid that without the change for the better as far as this situation is concerned, the professional career of a university teacher will not be in demand.

SCIENCE, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNOLOGIES

A university teacher can not be a good teacher without constant on-going studies and gaining new knowledge in his/her field. The best way how to be one is carrying on his/her own research and professional activity. The slogan "Publish or perish" is not taken for granted at our academic workplaces and the proclaimed comeback of science to our universities is not very intense. It is true that the engineering education requires such equipment as labs, computers and appliences. As far as the study expenses and demands are concerned, it is below our dignity that at present Technical Faculties together with Faculties of Physical Education are third rated having the coefficient 1.65 comparing to Faculties of Arts and Law Faculties, the coefficient of which is 1., Veterinary Faculties (coefficient 3.5), or Chemical Faculties and Faculties of Mathematics and Physics (coefficient 2.8). This proves that the significance of industry in our country's economy is overlooked. It is a result of deformations before the year 1989, and those responsible who should have tried to change this situation, have not done so yet. It must be taken for granted that to educate a design or a technologist requires the necessary equipment. Most technical universities try hard to get the recognition of their study programs all over Europe and to get the title of a "Euroengineer". And it may be just the level of equipment having an important role when a judgement is passed on the quality of the program and its realization.

Since research in the industrial enterprises was either significantly reduced or it was completely stopped due to the privatization process, it should be very important at universities and should be more intense. The program "Intensification of Research at Universities" was organized for the first time this year and the sum of 250 million Czech crowns was alloted to it. It is necessary to say that the Program Board eliminates the engineering issues and projects of the development character as something that is not in harmony with the conception of the basic research preferred by universities. In my opinion, this approach harms the interests of industry. Therefore, the support of the Ministry of Industry and the industry itself is expected.

THE ROLE OF INDUSTRY

It is typical for foreign companies operating in the Czech Republic to contact the Czech universities as soon as possible offering laboratory equipment and further forms of cooperation as well. They are aware of a quick investment return. This includes especially the fields that according to our views should be exported - electronics, sensorics, software engineering, instrumental and regulation technique, etc. Besides this direct concern, there are also indirect bounds with universities - diploma theses, course projects, student training, holiday jobs, research development projects, top specialist lecturing, membership in a Faculty Scientific Board, coordination of software purchase for the computer support of engineering activities, etc. All these forms plus scholarship for least popular professions help to motivate students and influence their decision making.

Of significant importance may be a joint procedure of universities and industry representatives in getting the best students from suitable high schools. Of course, the best argument for recruiting students is the perspective of good and interesting jobs related to jobs of designers dealing with quality and saleability of products, as well as attractive studies offered by universities. New methods, utilization of multi media and telematics may not only cause the necessary revitalization of students' interests but may also create the background for innovation, specialization and requalification studies for workers in industrial enterprises. These teaching technologies require financial means which universities are scarce of and it is the concern of industry to share the finance. On the other hand, companies should have the opportunity of tax deduction. We can hardly understand paying taxes on the means which have been obtained for education and research in such a hard way.

Today's engineer is stressed by a large quantity of new information and technologies. This causes that he/she very soon has to face such situations where he/she has to solve unknown tasks from the areas which he/she did not learn at school. It is estimated that at the beginning of the century an engineer could manage with his/her knowledge for about 50 years, in the sixties for 15 years, and only for 3 years at present. Therefore, besides supporting research and development of information technologies, new materials and processes, the industry should cooperate with universities to keep the ability of competition. They together should create modular educational programs for the industry. In the Czech Republic neither financial nor organizational presumptions have been ensured for them yet.

CONCLUSION

Looking for new approaches of how to attract the attention of talented young people and to revive their interest in creative professions is not a Czech specificity only. A similar problem is being solved in Western Europe as well as in the United States, i.e. in the countries the technological level of which is incomparably higher. The situation in the Czech Republic can not be compared with these countries from other reasons as well. It is first of all because of the fact that the per capita GDP in our country comparing to the per capita GDP in the above mentioned countries is only fractional. To reach the technological maturity means to bring on the changes in the system that concerns technical universities and the approach of the state and industry as well.

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