Consequently, we recommend that appropriate new legislation in
countries in transition be enacted:
(1) First, such countries must develop carefully crafted accreditation
benchmarks for initial minimal standards and for quality
assessment and improvement over time. The benchmarks should not be only the leading public universities in the country, but
could include other nearby regions or quality private universities.
The state and institutions need to understand that ‘‘one size
does not fit all institutions.’’ Appropriate standards should be
established for differentiated types of institutions (Sadlak 1994).
(2) In the accreditation review process, the agency coordinating the
review should include knowledgeable and highly regarded
scholars from both sectors on all review teams. The teams
should be selected wisely with due process for scholars and
representation of the institution type being reviewed. Reviewers
must not come from just the Ministry or public sector.
(3) The accreditation requirements should mandate that all private
universities offering degrees must be non-profit. Alternatively, if
they control private businesses, then these separate non-academic
agencies should be treated like any other business. This
requirement of separating higher education from proprietary
institutions is controversial in several countries, but through the
transitional period it minimises possible exploitation of students.
(4) The accreditation process must require an external board of
trustees or overseers to the institution under review in both
sectors; this board should give periodic review of appropriate
institutional performance objectives for accountability purposes.
(5) Appropriate tax policies must be addressed to facilitate the
growth and development of the education service industry
especially at the post-secondary level. Two types of policy can
provide incentives and disincentives for advancement. The first
policy encourages tax deductions for contributions to institutions,
while the second avoids taxing the revenue of non-profit
institutions. Tax policy that increases governmental revenue (via
a revenue tax) against private institutions is inexcusable, except
to prevent the development of private higher education under a
false belief that private institutions are for-profit. The heavy
philanthropy in industrialised countries has benefited both
public and private institutions, and has been a major source of
income for private and increasingly for public institutions
(Johnstone 2001). Governments in a few developing countries
have recognised the value of such tax breaks. Unfortunately,
only Poland in Central and Eastern Europe permits such tax
deductions currently. This simple mechanism has had dramatic
effects on the growth of higher education around the world, and has generated large resources to higher education without
costing central government forgone taxes.
(6) Ministries of education need to ‘‘decentralise’’ their decisionmaking
powers concerning administration of public and private
universities. By decentralising institutional decision-making,
institutions can become more responsive to the changing needs
of economies. Bureaucrats in central ministries were not successful
in the former Soviet system and there is limited evidence
that they can now succeed in a more market economy.