Search

This paper provides an overview of the theoretical and empirical framework of the debate on widening participation in higher education and explores to what extent the lessons learnt in this field have been applied in the field of public policy. Widening participation is based on the assumption that the probability of entering and successfully completing higher education is contingent on a complex range of social, economic and cultural characteristics of potential students, and that the measures aimed at widening participation must acknowledge the multi-faceted nature of inequities in education. In this context, this paper analyses the extent to which international stakeholders in higher education acknowledge widening participation as a priority. Special attention is given to the question of whether their policy documents take into account the results and implications of empirical research in this field. Finally, the paper assesses the potential impact of these documents on the debate on this topic in Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factual evidence is a necessary precondition for efficient creation of any public policy, and education policies are not an exception. This paper portrays changes in participation, completion, duration and structure of fee regimes in Croatian tertiary education system, based upon the data collected by Croatian Central Bureau of Statistics. During the past two decades Croatian higher education system went through the greatest transformation in last fifty years. Considerable massification and commercialization of tertiary education ensued. Both processes reached their full pace well before adoption of the Bologna process, and are most visible in professional studies, and academic courses in business, economics and law faculties. Despite expansion of system and prolongation of average study duration, completion rate has somewhat increased during the past decade. Taken together, this was reflected as considerable increase in number of students and proportion of cohort that successfully completes tertiary education. Though, with about 40% of students failing to graduate, Croatia still lags behind majority of EU and OECD countries, both with regard to proportion of cohort which graduates and number of students who drop out of tertiary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]