Latvia: Change the structure or die!

[Harold Schiffman]

Change the structure or die!
While thinking how to name this piece I was inspired by my colleague'sarticle. Jānis Bērziņš reference about economic ills in Brazil in thelate 1980's, and the famous phrase "export or die" actually was firstused by Nazi Germany policy makers. Knowing the past of Latin Americanjuntas it becomes understandable now through where did Brazilianslearn the strategy first proposed by Friedrich List from. Brazilianswere not the only ones actually, because Friedrich List inspiredalmost all countries in South East Asia, and his National System ofPolitical Economy served literally as a bible for the architects ofAsian economic boom from Japan in the 19th to Deng's China in the 20thcentury.
Japanese and the rest of Asia after the World War 2 totally changedstructure of their economic system, thus affecting also subsequentpolitical and social transformations. Results of "Asian Miracle" arewidely known and the world's economic powerhouse has gradually movedin the late 20th century from the Transatlantic area to the Pacific.
It does not imply now that if Latvian or any other Central Europeanpolicy makers would copy Japanese or Chinese model they wouldautomatically start prospering, however. The point is somewhere else,and that is the compatibility of the foreign economic models with theexisting social and material infrastructure. The key for the abilityto make comprehensive and sustainable transition from one economicsystem into another is hidden in using the best brains in a givencountry possible. In order to nurture the best brains there is a needfor cohesive tertiary education system which is based on principles ofmeritocracy. Meritocracy is the last thing cherished in Latviahowever.
Just listen to PM Godmanis, Transport Supremo, Education Minister andother members of the present political "elite". All previouslymentioned persons in their public utterances constantly ask thequestion - why does young generation not want to join party politics,become teachers or academics, and work in Latvia at all? The answer issimple ladies and gentlemen, that in order to work somewhere it isn'tyour merits what counts but your social networks, with all theconsequences to bear! Such social networking system starts from highschool where students with extremely bad grades are still promotedthrough the schooling system. Then they squeeze into university, andthey continue their squeezing through the system in labour market inthe manner of George W. Bush.
The difference between the US and Latvia is the sheer size of peopleand lack of totalitarian experience in the United States. The USsystem is far from perfect, and quality of its public schools directlydepend on the ability to collect property tax from affluent folks(that explains bad schools in run down areas in Harlem, Bronx etc.),but at least the US has the best university system. It means thatUniversities can attract the best students from all over the world andthus balance off relative shortcomings of its public education system.
Latvian university lecturers and professors, instead of devoting theirtime for research and working with best students, most of their timemust work with students of questionable quality. University attendancehas exponentially increased, but it has happened due to theexponential decline of vocational and technical school attendance.With few exceptions there is no real campus traditions, that wouldmake Latvian students socially active. Students attend not differentlectures at universitas but are pushed through the system like in thevocational school. The bottom line is that students work in order topay for their studies and in their free time they also study, and such"system" or vicious circle stands rock solid now.
If one looks on the OECD Pisa results then one may notice the trend inEast Asian economies, their schoolchildren are getting better andbetter. Also the number of Asian students in the best US, European andAustralian universities keeps increasing.
Results of Latvian schoolchildren, however, have declined in mostareas of evaluation. As a university lecturer I see that preparednessof Latvian students is declining from year to year. And it is nosurprise, because selfish and often poorly educated Latvian governmentadministrators provide teachers only with promises and salaries thatwould not allow them to starve. Such issues as comprehensiveevaluation system with courses for their professional upgrade orforeign visits are on paper only. In order to keep both ends meet inthe situation where teachers hemorrhage out to the Western part ofEurope those who stay at home work at least two shifts and they aresimply overworked (in September 2007 there were 475 official teacher'sposts in Latvia that were officially unfulfilled).
Such things as comprehensive and structural reform of the Latvianeducation system should go hand in hand with reforming the structureof the national budget priorities and the way taxes are determined andcollected. Latvian politicians are afraid to reform, however, andthere is up to now no one to reign in the ballooning red tape. Thusapathy prevails now also among the guild of dedicated enthusiasts -teachers, lecturers and professors.
I don't even want to speak about the language policy in universities.Latvian language should be promoted, aye. But there should be abalance found between preservation of the Latvian language culture andsupplying the most essential spheres of Latvian economy and socialinfrastructure with best professionals possible, even if they areeducated in English, German, French or Russian.
Constantly dragged and half-cooked reforms only increased prejudicesamong different groups in Latvian society. It means that it putssupporters of purity of Latvian language on defensive and only givesrise to intolerance in Latvia. Latvian society is literally caughttoday between financially not so promising West and the Eastern "candyman". Selfish benefits are at stake for the minigarchic families andtheir underlings. Long term goals of the state, which still is theprimary agent in the international system, have been forgotten and itwas very vividly exemplified by couple of high ranking civil servantsin private conversation with me. I asked, "why Latvian politicalgovernment dares to employ such reckless and outright corruptpolicies"? An answer was - "because we are in the EU and they cannotafford to let us down". If such "slave" mentality prevails amongpolitical elite, then it only underlines my previous assumption, thatthe present elite is uneducated and foolishly naive.
Latvian present economic structure cannot sustain its exponentialincrease of burgeoning red tape without structural reforms in most ofthe interconnected sectors of its national economy. Thus, the sloganduring this year of global economic downturn in Latvia should besimple - change the structure or die!
http://spolitis.blogspot.com/2008/04/change-structure-or-die.html
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