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South Eastern Europe is full of discrepancies. On the one hand the political fragmentation of the Balkan Region is increasing because the various nations of former Yugoslavia are no longer willing to accept being pressed to build a compulsory alliance. On the other hand there is a growing will in the region to work together in the field of economics and gradually building a common South-eastern European market. The still unfinished political fragmentation is not in contradiction to the increasing striving for an economic integration, because these two contrary movements are linked by one common goal: the membership in the EU is top priority for all Balkan countries.
Since regional economic co-operations strengthen the mutual confidence, the EU supports every step in this direction in every respect. Due to traditional conservative structures of the Faculties of Agriculture and to the inadequate age structure of their teaching staff, partially also as a follow-up of the war and the resulting brain drain, these institutions lack on competent contact persons or as educational institutions they have not been noticed until now sufficiently by international donors. The insufficient compatibility with EHEA and ability to use research funds from Framework Programs are direct consequences of poor management and strategic planning skills.
There is no doubt that for a competitive diversified and EU conform agriculture a consumer orientated educational and vocational training system is of vital importance. For the reform of these educational systems the agricultural faculties and universities are mainly responsible in all Balkan countries. Most of the Faculties of Agriculture (FoA) in the Western Balkan region have developed and implemented new curricula harmonized with the Bologna Declaration supported by numerous TEMPUS-Projects coordinated by the University of Hohenheim: CD-JEP-15050-2000; CD-JEP-17089-2002; CD-JEP- 17108-2002; CD-JEP-18069-2003; CD-JEP-19021-2004; CD-JEP-40035-2005, which have been or are still milestones on the way to a highly necessary educational reform in the food and agriculture sector.
All completed and ongoing curricula reform projects were focused on modern teaching contents at the agricultural faculties in the region, of the quality and modularization of their curricula and the improvement of the teaching skills of their existing staff in context to the newly introduced B.Sc./M.Sc. degrees.
However, all hard efforts done in the field of curriculum reform are done with insufficient care concerning the quality assurance as well as the improvement of strategic planning management. Therefore all efforts made until now with excellent results are endangered by the fact that there are no efficient systems to ensure quality management and regular comparison of the system at regional and international level. Moreover, the present positive trends in approaching EHEA, reached by the great help of EU community, could slow down or even get reversed, if adequate management support will be not created. All this curriculum reform projects did/do not interfere with basic prerequisites for their sustainability, for modern management which has capacity to ensure the infrastructure for a quality teaching and research based education.
Related to these basic problems also numerous of TEMPUS-projects have been approved in the region to support the university management in a more general way. Most of them deal with general organization questions and rectors' offices in view to a future integrated university and were not significantly affecting the faculty structures. However, traditional structures of the university in the WB region assume lot of independence of faculties.
During the transition phase faculties of agriculture are expected to implement modern principles of management which are in accordance with EU standards. However, strategic planning (self-analysis, benchmarking, and setting priorities) and decision making based on results of systematically analysis (SWOT and other types) has not become a common practice for the agricultural faculties. The faculty Deans in WB countries are de facto and de iure managers responsible for human resources, material and financial matters and along with Vice-Deans, they are managing the institutions that range from 30 to over 400 staff. Faculty management staff is generally highly educated but not in the relevant field. Their positions are requesting strong strategic and everyday management skills especially in quality assurance system and planning, but they rarely have any formal education or experience in regard to institution management, self-evaluation, strategic or operational planning.
Moreover, the management is very often not transparent, very centralized and self-evaluation is seen as "Dean's supervision", and use of modern IT technology and resources that could support better management are very limited. The very same situation is at the university level too. Therefore, until today the educational institutions in agriculture and nutrition sector can still be characterized by the following structural deficits and unsolved problems: lack of attention to real needs of learners, lack of "customer-orientation" regarding stakeholder and local community, cooperation, including the fostering of employable skills, lack of human resources management, lack of long-term institutional vision and of realistic mid-and long-term planning, lack of international contacts and cooperation, slow student progression, high drop-out rates during exams and long duration of studies, low and inadequate student participation in decision-making, evaluation of teaching and student support services, lack of management capacities for strategic planning.
A precondition for the complete integration of the FoA in a regional network is the improvement of their faculty infrastructure and their management which will be the basis for an intensive and efficient cooperation in the HE of Agriculture in WB.
Due to the common efforts of the mentioned educational network and due to the reached successes in the ongoing reform process the existing network of the agricultural faculties in the region together with their European partners developed a design for a two year JEP related to the need of increasing the management capacities in universities and faculties in the WB region.
