Centre for Civic Education (CCE) welcomed the decisiveness of Ministry of Education regarding the prevention of recognition of foreign educational certificates or the validation of diplomas from higher education institutions that are not accredited and licensed in countries where those higher education institutions perform their activities, and thus issue invalid diplomas.
CCE believes that all countries from region should additionally determine whether all higher education institutions on their territories have licenses for work within their activities, or if these are accredited. However, CCE indicated that, unfortunately, Montenegro did not solved this issue in a transparent manner as well.
Namely, CCE submitted a request to Higher Education Council, on 04/09/2014, regarding the the copies of accreditations of Faculty for Montenegrin language and literature with supporting documentation based on which the accreditation was issued in line with Articles 24 and 25 of Law on Higher Education, for which CCE did not receive an answer up to date. Also, CCE requested the accreditation of Faculty for Mediterranean business studies – Tivat with the supporting documentation from Higher Education Council based on which the aforementioned was reaccredited, as well as the accreditation of Maritime Faculty in Bar, to which after two years hasn’t received an answer.
In addition, the Ministry of Education never replied on requested information regarding the submission of licence for the abovementioned faculties. Hence, if the Ministry indeed wants to stop the inflow of diplomas from institutions with questionable credibility, it would be logical to start regulating state of affairs in that area firstly in its own yard. Otherwise, one get the impression that this approach is selective, which is not good, and such practice should be terminated instantly.
CCE pointed out that the issue of issuing licenses and accreditations to higher education institutions in Montenegro must be transparent, in line with the Law on Higher Education, without the possibility of leaving the public to question whether there is the existence of suspicious conditions for their issuance.
CCE urges the Minister of Education Predrag Bošković to change bad practice of this Ministry which reflects in considerable closeness and lack of transparency and to have non selective approach in addressing long lasting problem in this area regardless of who could be the potential damaged subjects.
Mira Popović, programme associate