Paper Titles & Abstracts

As in some other post-socialist countries in Eastern and Central Europe, higher education expansion in Macedonia started with a considerable delay compared to the more affluent Western European countries. In the last decade of the twentieth century no significant measure were made to improve the number of graduates, in some respect for obvious and unavoidable reasons related to the perceived urgency to priorities other 'transitional' issues that have created the need for huge amounts of public spending. No specific higher education proposal attracted universal recognition, whereas more provisional and largely experimental adoptions of various kinds found greater favor (Scott, 2007). In such circumstances, buttressed by the general low intake of students followed by an even lesser number of graduates the government of Macedonia has recently engaged in a process of 'catching up' with the EU levels of higher education graduates - currently above 30 per cent - a percentage drastically higher compared to the 17 per cent in Macedonia. The analytical enterprise of this paper - as much as it is a critique - is to explore the European Union (EU) higher education attainment policy, which currently finds expression in the target of achieving 40 per cent graduate levels by 2020, beyond the Union's borders. The paper assesses the EU policy proposal in place and its outcomes in relation with an EU candidate country - Macedonia; which has voluntarily reflected to the EU attainment target, further than the acquis communautaire, as an important reference point. The concern of the paper, however, is not only to depict the exact patterns of development towards achievement or non-achievement of the attainment target in Macedonia. It concerns is, more importantly, to try and provide analysis of front line concerns related to quality, financial sustainability and wider future implications, even if the attainment target proofs to be satisfied.