ACADEMIC ETHICS – A FACTOR FOR EDUCATIONAL QUALITY

Abstract

The socio-economic changes in our country over the past 33 years have put our educational system in front of a number of trials and challenges. Against the background of the proclaimed quality of training and education, the results of the metamorphoses that Bulgarian education is going through, diverge from the expectations of high quality and literacy. Rather, the percentage of illiteracy, lack of permanent knowledge and skills, lack of interest and reluctance to implement is increasing. The reasons are multidirectional in this direction, primarily of a subjective nature. The impression is that for the period from the changes after 1989 until now, the results of the experiments in the education system have diverged from the quality requirement. It went through numerous legislative and by-law amendments with a number of defects, through new curricula and programs at each educational level, through a number of unfounded administrative regulations, through the selection of textbooks, often difficult to understand by the students, through a study load incompatible with the age of the various educational groups and levels, insufficient relationship between individual educational levels, especially between secondary and higher education, etc. But in the public space, the discussions seem to be focused primarily on the consequence - the deteriorating quality of education, without emphasizing the causes. The statements of a number of apologists are accompanied by normative changes, far from the requirements for the quality of the educational product, with a large amount of retroactivity and political overtones. And quite reasonably, the main question is who is interested in all this? It is logical that the answers are ambiguous, multifactorial and require a thorough, detailed analysis of the entire educational system. Of course, within the scope of the present publication, such could hardly be imagined. Our research is limited to the study of one of the factors for the quality of higher education, which is academic ethics. From here, the aim of this publication is to answer the question of the role and place of academicism and academic ethics for a quality educational process in higher schools. The author's scientific research is based on his personal observations as a teacher and direct participant in accreditation procedures, without imposing a definite opinion with his judgments. Of course, there will certainly be disagreement, but the problems in this direction are not one and two, which determines the need for a public debate. Moreover, the unity among the academic community will contribute to their solution.