Common issues with performance-based funding
The unequal distribution of benefits to already privileged agents, known as the ‘Matthew effect’, is widely regarded to be a common challenge for performance-based mechanisms.
To prevent this and encourage the transition of universities to the new funding rules, regional data will be applied to higher education institutions located outside the capital city of Kyiv. Given the large-scale student migration over the last decade, this decision is crucial to relieve potential problems for regional universities.
Another measure introduced to establish a sound framework for higher education public funding in Ukraine is sanctioning information asymmetry. Providing invalid or unreliable institutional data by universities is to result in non-refundable cuts of their annual lump sums. In this way, higher education agents are expected to demonstrate integrity and steer clear of gaming results, which is another frequent problem in performance-oriented funding systems.
The performance funding formula has been under discussion for the last five years, bringing together the expertise of policy-makers, national researchers, academic managers and civil leaders. As with even the most carefully planned policies, the formula might well require certain amendments when we see what unfolds in practice.
There could be a need to revisit data used or indicators to make them more representative of the institutional landscape. Yet the change of higher education funding principles in Ukraine is a clear sign of the long-awaited move from centralised state regulation to an evidence-based strategy based on results.
Kateryna Suprun is a state expert in the Analytics, Funding and International Relations Expert Group of the Directorate of Higher and Adult Education, Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, and a current Ukrainian delegate to the Bologna Follow-Up Group. She received an MSc as part of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Programme in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) from Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences in Germany and Danube University Krems in Austria.
Quelle: University World News
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