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A reflection on
adaptability;achievement motivation
and success of Central and Eastern
European students in one English
university
Maj a Jankowska
a
a
Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (Bridges-CETL),
University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK
Available online: 22 Jul 2011
To cite this article: Maj a Jankowska (2011): A reflection on adaptability;achievement motivation
and success of Central and Eastern European students in one English university, Compare: A Journal
of Comparative and International Education, DOI:10.1080/ 03057925.2011.602536
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3. RESEARCH ARTICLE
A reflection on adaptability;achievement motivation and success of
Central and Eastern European students in one English university
Maja Jankowska*
Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (Bridges-CETL), University of Bedfordshire,
Luton, UK
(Received 22 April 2010; final version received 29 June 2011)
This article reflects on and discusses Central and Eastern European (CEE) learn-
ers’ adaptability and achievement in one English post-1992 university. There
appears to be a scarcity of studies of values, beliefs, attitudes and needs as well
as achievement (and factors contributing to it) between CEE and other learners.
Since the expansion of the European Union, CEE students’ presence in British
higher education has become more pronounced. CEE learners are treated as
home students (for the purpose of fees) and yet they come from a distinctively
different socio-historical background and pedagogic tradition – tradition (as
explained further in the article) that is, to a certain extent, common in CEE
countries as a result of the sovietisation of education systems within post com-
munistic countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In the British higher educa-
tion sector there is a move in curriculum delivery towards more personalised
learning, which underlines that effective teaching and learning starts with under-
standing the individual student. Therefore, it is important that universities with a
high proportion of EU students attempt to understand where CEE students come
from and what their aspirations might be. This article provides some insights
into CEE learners’ values, attitudes and motivations to learn and looks for possi-
ble reasons for their success.
Keywords: Central and Eastern European (CEE) students; reflection; adaptation;
attainment; socio-historical and cultural background
Introduction: Central and East European countries (CEE)
This article engages in critical reflection on Eastern European learners in one
English university in the hope of providing colleagues with a lens through which to
look at this particular group of students and bring some understanding of their spe-
cific attitudes towards education that may facilitate their adaptation and achieve-
ment. Specifically, it explores the role of socio-historical background, values and
beliefs that may contribute to students’ adjustment to the English system of higher
education and eagerness to engage with its opportunities.
These students are commonly referred to as Eastern Europeans, but this term
can be confusing as countries further south in Europe may be seen as culturally and
historically different from those in central Europe. Therefore, this article concen-
*Email: maja.jankowska@beds.ac.uk
CompareAquatic Insects
2011, 1–18, iFirst Article
ISSN 0305-7925 print/ISSN 1469-3623 online
Ó 2011 British Association for International and Comparative Education
DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2011.602536
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4. trates on students from the central European post-communistic countries, which
share certain characteristics and educational approaches, especially Poland,
Slovakia, Hungary and post-Soviet Union countries, including Russia (for discus-
sion of communist education and commonalities of the systems, see Roberts 2001;
Godoń, Jucevičienė and Kodelja 2004) with an accent placed on Poland, which is
my home country.
Methodology
Researcher’s position and status defined
In the course of working at a British university I have been confronted with staff
members’ observations on CEE students’ attainment, ability to reflect and relative
ease of adaptation to a new system. These subjective perceptions, combined with
statistical data showing a relatively high level of attainment of CEE students at the
University of Bedfordshire (undergraduate scheme review 2007–08, 2008–09,
University of Bedfordshire) and some findings from my PhD study contributed to
the search for answers to the question of what makes CEE learners successful.
Through my doctoral research and many discussions with fellow academics, I
grappled with my own thoughts, questions and often conflicting ideas of what it
means to be a CEE student in a British context. I therefore offer a part of my inter-
nal dialogue in a form of critical reflection. I embrace my identity as both an insider
(CEE and a PhD student) and outsider (a scholar) and overtly present my subjectiv-
ity and ‘social baggage’ that undoubtedly affected my reflexivity (Reviere 2001)
with a hope that ‘emotional does not wipe out the public, theoretical, and rational’
(Sparkes 2002, 216, original emphasis).
Wall (2006, 3) contended that ‘a social scientist who has lived through an expe-
rience and has consuming, unanswered questions about it can use introspection as a
data source’. I therefore take a personal, insider’s stance and draw on my experi-
ences and reflections in the search for answers as to why CEE students at the Uni-
versity of Bedfordshire are seen as achieving, reflective and adaptable, and why
many of them are so highly motivated to learn and obtain degrees. Therefore my
insights serve as a starting point and a lens for a critical reflective approach, in
which I re-visit and draw on some of the data collected for my PhD as well as ped-
agogic literature. As Miles and Huberman (1994) point out, findings can be verified
or at least made plausible ‘by seeing or hearing multiple instances of it from differ-
ent sources by using different methods’ (267). The application of phenomenologi-
cal, subjective, critical and grounded lenses in my search for answers will
contribute to the body of knowledge of emergent phenomena.
PhD data
The data, which further informed and helped to develop my own reflection in an
attempt to make sense of the way my colleagues position CEE students within the
university, are derived from a larger qualitative, interpretive and phenomenological
project on representations and experiences of personal development among students
at one of the post-1992 multi-cultural universities (Jankowska 2009; 2010a; 2010b;
forthcoming). This study focused on the four statistically biggest groups of students
attending the University of Bedfordshire, with CEE being one of them.
2 M. Jankowska
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5. Thematic analysis was used to externalise the emerging themes from semi-struc-
tured interviews and concept maps (a graphic technique used to capture the main
concepts and relationships between them; for detailed explanation see Jankowska
2009; 2010a; 2010b conducted between 2007 and 2008 with both under- and post-
graduate students. Some of these themes illuminated the questions and reflections
presented in this article and therefore serve as a secondary source of data.
Ethics
The research, ethically approved by the Psychology Department Ethics Committee,
was composed of four studies, with the data used in this article coming from the
pilot and two main studies with under- and postgraduate students. All students
obtained a short description of the study and a comprehensive consent form prior to
taking part.
Sample
There were 32 participants in the postgraduate sample (all of them sketched a con-
cept map but only 11 were interviewed), 22 in the undergraduate sample and five
in the pilot sample, of which respectively five, eight and one were CEE. Slovak,
Polish, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Russian students (from a variety of sub-
jects) were among the interviewed participants in the CEE group. Pseudonyms have
been used instead of real names.
Context
The University of Bedfordshire is an English, post-1992 widening participation
institution, with an increasingly diverse body of students, committed to providing
education to ‘all (who) are able to benefit from transformational experiences’ (Uni-
versity of Bedfordshire 2011). The widening access ‘in terms of aspirations, matu-
rity, nationality, gender, ethnicity, prior attainment, prior study, mode and location
of study’ (Atlay 2008, 6) is ‘both a strength as it provides rich and varied experi-
ences on which to draw, and a challenge in that each student has individual needs
and priorities’ (Atlay 2007). The university’s student community is multi-national.
In recognition of this, the university includes in its formal policy documents the
importance of recognising and learning from students’ different perspectives (at
least this is an intention), as well as the obligation to prepare them for global citi-
zenship and a global workplace (Atlay 2008). The core values (ASPIRE: access,
scholarship, partnership, innovation, respect and employability) University of
Bedfordshire 2011) underpin the type of a curriculum model that this university
implemented. This curriculum underlines the need for personalised and realistic
learning, employability and support. Specifically, it considers how the university
can respond to the individual learning needs of diverse students by creating an envi-
ronment that encourages them to understand themselves and which supports the
development of skills and attitudes vital for success (through personal development
planning processes). It also advocates ‘realistic learning’ (Atlay 2008; Atlay, Gaitan
and Kumar 2008; Kumar 2007) – learning that is meaningful (practical and rele-
vant), active (requires engagement), challenging, reflective, collaborative and aimed
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6. at developing students as lifelong learners. The university has expressed its
intention to provide various support structures and mechanisms for its continuously
growing and diverse student population.
This article engages in a discussion on CEE students (as one of the group of
learners whose learning needs have not been investigated in depth) in an attempt to
explore how a combination of their beliefs, values and attitudes is expressed in the
specific environment of the University of Bedfordshire, described above.
Socio-historical background – a case study of Poland and some commonalities
with other CEE countries
When nations have existed for a long and glorious time, they cannot break with their
past, whatever they do; they are influenced by it at the very moment when they work
to destroy it; in the midst of the most glaring transformation, they remain fundamen-
tally in character and destiny such as their history has formed them. Even the most
daring and powerful revolutions cannot abolish traditions of long duration. (François
Guizot cited in Kohn 1955, vii)
Historically, Poland has undergone long periods of oppression and division due
to annexation by powerful neighbouring countries which resulted in its disappear-
ance from the world map for 123 years until 1918 (1st
, 2nd
and 3rd
annexations,
respectively 1772, 1793, 1795). After a short period of independence, Poland once
again experienced persecution during the Second World War and, after the war, the
oppression continued under the communist regime. The Soviet Union regime found
its expression in the unification of political systems and educational structures
within the region. As Roberts (2001) summarises, ‘everywhere had basically the
same Moscow-approved system’ (317).
When foreign domination was at its most intense, the banning of any expression
of nationalism meant that Poles were not allowed to speak, read or write in Polish
(especially after the third annexation by Prussia, Russia and Austria in 1795 until
1918). The centrality of language was noted by Zaprudnik (cited by Richmond
1995, 14):
Language is the soul of a nation, the supreme manifestation of its true spiritual life. A
nation lives and flourishes in history while its language lives. With the decline of the
language, culture withers and atrophies, the nation ceases to exist as a historical organ-
ism. . .
Therefore historically, the Poles had to fight for the right to express their
national values and feelings and maintain their language, culture and intellectual
independence, and, as Baranczak (cited in Richmond 1995, 59) underlines, ‘even
during the worst periods. . .totalitarianism was never able to suppress the residues of
independent culture’.
The intelligentsia’s oppositional role in the creation of an educational ethos
During the years of annexations, wars and communism, a strong and important ‘cul-
turally homogenous social stratum of educated people united by charismatic feelings
and a certain set of values’ (Gella 1971, 1), referred to as intelligentsia, was
4 M. Jankowska
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7. gradually formed. The term intelligentsia indicates ‘a spectrum of personal qualities
and dispositions that become externalised in the form of “proper” behaviour, good
manners and certain socio-cultural choices’ (Narveselius 2010). Moreover, the intel-
ligentsia were usually educated and intellectually active (in a way that goes beyond
intellect in a cognitive sense) and involved in the production of cultural discourses
– academic, political, artistic and narrative. The intelligentsia defined itself as the
nation’s and the people’s spiritual leaders.
The formation of similar strata in the neighbouring countries was seen by the
West as an Eastern European phenomenon (Davies 1981; 1986; Kennedy 1992).
The Polish intelligentsia is a social group of people who could belong to various
professional groups and have various material statuses (in fact, under communis-
tic regimes members of the intelligentsia were often kept outside the high earn-
ing professions, which were reserved for members of the communist party) but
have always felt the necessity to fulfil a leading role in the creation and mainte-
nance of cultural and intellectual properties and propagating the ideas of national-
ism, especially the cultivation of language, tradition, literature and free thinking
(Davies 1986; Zamoyski 1987). Kennedy (1992, 29) suggests that, in fact, ‘the
most prominent actor in the 1989 transformation of Eastern Europe has been the
intelligentsia.’
The occupying forces during annexations – the Nazis and later the Soviets –
saw the intelligentsia as the most dangerous group which should be targeted for
extermination, or at least social exclusion, to the point where Taras (1986, 44)
states: ‘Poland’s intelligentsia had been wiped out by the virtual genocide of the
Jewry, the Katyn atrocity, the systematic and summary Gestapo roundups and
executions of intellectuals during the occupation’. The systematic Germanisation
and Russification in the years of annexations (later implemented also by the
Nazis and the Soviets) was an attempt to destroy the sense of national identity,
the language and cultural and intellectual production. This element of purpose-
fully targeted oppression played an important role in the formation of the
national resilience movement led by the intelligentsia, which particularly contrib-
uted to the creation of clandestine education (for example, the famous under-
ground ‘flying university’), publishing and the distribution of forbidden texts
directed at maintaining the language, traditions, culture, the sense of national
belonging and, above all, informing the public (Davies 1986). It also contributed
to a nationally shared vision that the nation could be alive as long as knowledge
could be produced and reproduced. Hence, education and knowledge sharing
have been seen as powerful means of maintaining personal and national freedom
(freedom that is often taken for granted in the West).
I have elaborated on the intelligentsia’s role in the formation of an educational
ethos as it may still be one of the factors influencing students’ attitudes towards
learning. Richmond (1995, 61) maintained that even though intellectuals are no
longer a minority in Polish society (due to popularisation of mass education), the
intellectual tradition flourishes:
Poles today are a highly educated people, thanks to the expansion of higher education
and the democratisation of educational opportunities [. . .] They are very knowledge-
able, not only about the history and culture of their own country, but of other
countries as well.
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8. Education – ethos, family pressure and a way of life
Education and having a degree is often seen as essential by descendents of the
Polish intelligentsia. There is an unspoken expectation within such families that the
offspring would go to university and become academics, doctors, lawyers, politi-
cians – the future elite and intellectual force in the country. Roberts (2001, 318)
observes that:
intelligentsia parents were the most likely to be keen for their children to succeed on
the academic track. They valued their academic education not so much for the jobs
and salaries to which it led, as for the culture and the way of life with which both the
education and occupations were associated. Coal miners and steel workers usually
earned far more than schoolteachers and doctors.
It would have been almost inconceivable for me not to go to university. My
family’s expectation was that I would get a degree and a ‘proper one’. I am the
daughter of a lawyer and a pedagogue committed to propagating Polish literature.
As such, I could not consider anything but university. In addition, at the time it
would never have appeared to me, and most of my friends, that there was anything
beyond the world of academia. We could not conceive of just finishing high school
and going out to work. Therefore, the views expressed by a Slovak student (Univer-
sity of Bedfordshire) resonate with me:
I spoke to my cousin who is younger to me and he said he didn’t want to go to the
university and we started talking about it and I was trying to persuade him: ‘Well, you
have to go because it is so important for your life!’ And he was giving me arguments
why not to go and I really didn’t want to listen because that was just the way I was
brought up, to go to the university. (Aneta, Slovak).
Moreover, some of the CEE students valued education so much that not only
would they not consider not going to university at all but finishing with an under-
graduate degree only may be seen as insufficient:
I planned for the future when I was at school, that I will go to the university for sure.
When I went to the university, OK, generally I thought that I will get my PhD.
(Yvonne, Russian, a student simultaneously on an MSc in the UK and a PhD in
Russia)
Actually I have planned even now when. . .uhm. . .where I want to do my PhD degree
so...quite far. (Krzysztof, Polish, in his first year of undergraduate degree)
It might be that negative attitudes towards ending education with an undergradu-
ate degree stem from the fact that traditionally (during communism and long after –
until the introduction of the Bologna Process), in CEE most subjects took five years
to study (six for medicine) before graduating with a master’s degree. The studies
were demanding and comprehensive, with a lot of contact hours – hence it was
almost impossible to study and work at the same time. In Poland, only teacher
training colleges offered an equivalent of three-year bachelor degree programme.
The introduction of the Bologna Process, with its attempts to unify European educa-
tion, divided higher education into under- and postgraduate study. However, some
undergraduate students may still feel that their education is incomplete and that this
type of degree is somehow inferior. Roberts (2001, 321) points out there was a
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9. clear ‘trend throughout the 1990s towards young people prolonging their education’
and ‘this was in the context of high general and even higher youth unemployment’.
I would argue that this trend is not only economically driven (and in fact enduring)
but also that cultural and historical factors also play an important role. In a series
of articles, Hufton, Elliott and Illushin (2002a; 2002b), Elliot, Hufton, Hildreth and
Illushin (1999) and Elliot and Tudge (2007) attempted to find answers to the puzzle
of high educational motivation and engagement of Russian adolescents (in compari-
son to their American and British counterparts), pointing to the central position of
education in students’ lives. The emphasis upon being an educated or ‘cultured’
person (Williams 1997) has been maintained as ‘being educated and “intellectual”
is very much tied up with national identity in some of these countries’ (Perry 2011,
personal communication). Hufton, Elliott and Illushin (2002a; 2002b) and Perry
(2005) accentuate education (in Russia and the Czech Republic) as highly valued in
itself. Holy (1996, quoted in Perry 2005) suggests that Czech national self-identity
is built on the notion of being educated and cultured (with examples of heroes and
leaders seen as intellectuals throughout history), and this image is in line with the
intelligentsia’s tradition across CEE countries, as discussed earlier.
Many of the students I meet at University of Bedfordshire still choose to do
both under- and postgraduate degrees, and some of them study simultaneously two
degrees in two different countries (although, to the best of my knowledge, this phe-
nomenon has not been researched and there are no statistical data available). I
myself am not an exception from this trend, with a bachelor’s and master’s degree,
continuing my learning journey on the route to a PhD.
My reflection on this phenomenon brought a realisation that knowledge has
always been seen by intellectuals as a liberty: a forbidden fruit, a tool to protect
oneself from a communistic brain wash, exercise intellectual freedom and enjoy a
particular way of life (at least among descendents of intelligentsia). Even though
the CEE countries have been free for two decades now, education is still often
treated as the highest good, an end in itself (see Hufton, Elliott, and Illushin
2002a; 2002b). This view is reflected in CEE students’ tendency to value educa-
tion not only as a means to a career but even more importantly as a source of
personal satisfaction, self actualisation (Goldstein 1934; Maslow 1954), self explo-
ration and crossing self limitations (Jankowska 2009). This view is congruent with
Hufton, Elliott and Illushin’s research (2002a) pointing to a ‘strong evidence of
students’ pursuing mastery goals and making significant effort to secure learning
and improvement for their intrinsic value – as a means of personal growth’ (75).
Asked for their reasons to study, students whom I interviewed mentioned, for
example, their fear of being intellectually limited and the search for personal satis-
faction:
I should know it for my – to be intelligent person, to be able to maintain all conversa-
tions, to be able not to feel myself like idiot [. . .] [I learn] mostly to understand.
(Yvonne, Russian)
I want to be clever, (how do I say?), I don’t want to be stupid. [My goal in learning
is] first place personal satisfaction of the learning, that I feel I have learned something
[so the grade is not that important]. (Thomas, Slovak)
Why, why do I learn? He! [chuckles] Uhm. . .’cos, I think, yeah, I – I, everybody
learns to develop. Because life without. . .uhm. . .without like developing, without
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10. learning new things, maybe not all the time, but like this, like every year, every few
years, it would be boring really. ’Cos you would just stay in one place. (Robert, Pol-
ish)
When I reflect on my own reasons to study, I realise that apart from the drive
for knowledge inherited from my family, I have also wanted to know more and
more. I have felt I can never stop, and many times I felt overwhelmed with the
amount of things I still do not know and the books I want to read and ideas I want
to grasp. The thrill of gaining a deeper understanding, the transformation that
comes with it is like an adrenaline rush. The addiction is so strong that I just can-
not wait for another wave of insight as I know it will change my thinking irrevers-
ibly and take me to yet another level with a broader perspective. The prospect of
being able to share those new things is also important – in the end I am a social
learner and I learn to share and to facilitate others’ learning. I see a bit of myself
in many students’ responses – yes, I learn for my own satisfaction but also to sat-
isfy my family’s expectations. I learn for fear of being limited or not able to under-
stand. I learn because I am curious and my life would be boring without
continuous learning. And I also learn to challenge myself and push myself to see
how far I can go.1
Bateson and Taylor (2004, 480) quote the results of a student survey conducted
at the Central European University (Hungary)2
in 2003, which are in line with my
own findings (Jankowska forthcoming) and indicate that ‘the broad intellectual curi-
osity and social engagement’ are high on the hierarchy of needs. In particular the
students rated the categories below as the most important:
Improving their understanding of other countries and cultures (83%)
Raising a family (74%)
Developing a philosophy of life (71%)
Helping others who are in difficulty (71%)
Influencing the social values in their own countries (68%).
Bateson and Taylor conclude that student expectations of their university experi-
ence are not narrowly defined or concrete in terms of career development. While
72% of the surveyed students indicated an interest in advancing their current career,
this was not the primary reason for choosing to study in a graduate-level pro-
gramme. (2004, 480, emphasis added)
The students I interviewed referred to a career, but personal achievements and
intrinsic satisfaction were more important than climbing a career ladder:
Now achievements for me are more – more what kind of a person you can be, like
for example, if you can understand other people and feel with them and help them. If
you can be more opened to help other people, even if you don’t get anything for it or
because in the end it gives you much better feeling about yourself than you, you earn
a lot of money. (Aneta, Slovak)
Economic reasons for studying
Because the CEE countries are still in a phase of a rapid change and instability,
there is little job security or guarantee of employment, even for graduates. Hence
being specialised in more than one subject is treated as strengthening employment
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11. prospects (see Roberts 2001), especially for those who see themselves as flexible,
or are not sure what direction to take – like Yvonne who treats her study as a way
of finding her way or Katka who states:
Yeah, the study I’m doing, an MA, so I thought that the degree is going to help me to
a certain position and. . .ehm. . .build a career from there but I still, I’m still looking
for what I enjoy and what, what I like.
In my case, taking a second degree was, on the one hand, a way to escape
unemployment and, on the other, a way to learn more and gain more skills.
University scenario specific for CEE countries
It is important to note that taking more than one degree may be relatively easy in
CEE countries where the old, traditional universities are still state funded. In Poland,
for example, not only do students not have to pay any fees (if they are day attendees
at the state universities) but also, those with the best results obtain a scholarship (a
‘motivational’ scholarship or a ‘social’ scholarship for students from disadvantaged
backgrounds). There is also a lucrative scholarship from the Ministry of National
Education awarded to those who have excellent grades and make significant contribu-
tions to a university’s scholarly and non-scholarly activities (ironically, this scholar-
ship, which I was awarded twice, was higher than my first graduate salary). Access
to education is therefore not dependent on material status (although it depends on the
ability to achieve), and is fiercely competitive (Roberts 2001). I offer this explanation
to highlight the different circumstances of British and CEE students. Having com-
pleted two degrees, I not only graduated completely debt-free but I actually accumu-
lated a significant amount of savings, largely from all the various stipends and
scholarships I obtained in the course of eight years of studies. Although my situation
was not representative as only a very small percentage of students obtain the highest
stipends, many CEE students are in a privileged situation in comparison to their Wes-
tern counterparts (this will not last much longer, however, as I explain below).
It should not be assumed that state funded education is accessible for all. On the
contrary: entry to the prestigious state universities in Poland and many other CEE
countries is highly competitive. Many students compete for every place, especially
for the most popular subjects (in 1996, when I took my entry exams, the ratio for
psychology at my home university was 18.5 students to one place). The first year is
usually very difficult (with around 30 contact hours and a lot of self-study time,
many interdisciplinary subjects, such as philosophy, ethics, logic, sociology and ped-
agogy, which are intended to provide a sound academic basis for students of a range
of disciplines). Polish students call this a ‘weeding-out’ year – put simply, students
who do not achieve the required standard have to leave. The customer orientation,
though slowly creeping in, is still not fully operational in state universities there.
Failing huge proportions of students is acceptable in order to get students to what is
seen as a ‘proper academic level’ (or get rid of the weakest ones). Those students
who ‘survive’ the first year stand a good chance of successfully graduating. Harsh as
it may sound (and running counter to the widening participation agenda and student-
centred teaching), students seem not only to accept the demands of the study but also
take a certain pride in belonging to the intellectual elite of the country.
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12. ‘A university rite of passage’ in CEE versus supportive orientation in Western
universities
Traditionally, CEE universities were ‘ivory towers’ engaged in the production and
reproduction of national knowledge rather than supporting their students. Their aim
was to advance science and produce experts in particular fields, not to encourage
students’ personal development. Therefore, according to Bateson and Taylor (2004,
475):
students would expect to have a rigorous academic experience, to spend time in the
classroom and in the library, to read and advance their knowledge in the given subject
area, to be examined, graded and eventually to leave with the university diploma.
Universities would not consider activities such as pastoral care, career and indi-
vidual guidance, personal development planning, etc. as their responsibility. There
were no induction courses, no personal tutoring and any communication was
restricted to notes posted on notice boards. Bateson and Taylor (2004) judge such
an approach as leaving students to their own devices, without showing any care
or providing support, therefore throwing students into liminal space (Meyer and
Land 2006), where traversing the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky 1987),
which can be understood as ‘the distance between the actual developmental level
[. . .] and the level of potential development’, was particularly difficult and
achieved only by the best students (for a further discussion of Vygotsky’s and
Meyer and Land’s concepts see also Raiker 2010). However, they also point out
that there are still many academics and administrators who believe in such an
approach and treat it as ‘a rite of passage’ – an experience of learning how to
survive in an academic environment (‘the university is not there to hold hands
and wipe tears; it is there for young adults to learn how to get on with their lives
independently’, 2004, 475). Such a regime may seem harsh to some of my Wes-
tern colleagues, I realise. However, I believe that students who come from CEE
educational systems may be less inclined to expect support, demand good cus-
tomer service or question academic practices. Hufton, Elliott, and Illushin 2002a
suggest that students’ acceptance for such a model of education is related to the
fact that education itself is so highly valued. CEE students tend to get on with
whatever is expected of them and do not demand social and student-oriented
activities, personalisation of learning, individual support or feedback. However,
they welcome such initiatives and use them whenever the opportunities arise (for
example, CEE students are noted to frequently take part in extra-curricula activi-
ties organised by the career advisors at the University of Bedfordshire) but they
probably seldom consider them an entitlement (Bateson and Taylor 2004). More-
over, they also value education highly (at the university here they value the prac-
tical knowledge, support and opportunities – see quotations below) and are
motivated to achieve, often striving for the best results. It comes as no surprise to
me that CEEs are rarely problematised as a group of learners in the way that
some international students are (for example, the ‘Chinese learner’ portrayed as a
passive rote learner, reluctant to participate in group discussions, Kember and
Gow 1991; Kember 1996; Biggs 1996; Marton, Watkins, and Tang 1997; Turner
and Acker 2002). The years of a rigorous educational regime and respect for
higher education and academics, combined with individuals’ drive for intellectual
development and self-actualisation, seem to have left their mark.
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13. As I reflect back, I realise I have always welcomed learning and developmental
opportunities but treated them more like an unexpected Christmas gift than
something to which I had a right. Whenever challenges arose, I did not feel that I
could seek help from my lecturers, and I still find it difficult to accept that I could
‘bother’ them or ask for their precious time. I would just try and find my own way,
even though probably more often than not, this method would be more time con-
suming, result in many dead ends and not very efficient. Such an attitude may also
lead to avoidance of help seeking or revealing serious issues for fear of failure or
being judged. Sometimes it is difficult to find the right balance between autonomy
and relevant support.
Some CEE students in the study observed that back home there is not much
support available:
The lecturers say what they need to say, then you go home and study and that’s it,
sometimes you don’t know what is required. (Adela, Slovak)
[In Slovakia] get the books and do your best. No one is, like no one is curious what’s
going on with you – if you struggle with some question, I think, so not their business.
(Thomas)
Other students indicated their preference for individualised learning and realistic
learning (Atlay 2008; Atlay, Gaian and Kumar 2008):
It’s more personal here. Yeah, teachers have more time, students here pay big money
for university so they want to have a service. (Thomas, Slovak)
Oh, here it’s more friendly and more on the same level, I’d say, and very informal
communication and also more ways of communicating [. . .] and if you don’t under-
stand anything you can ask and they will find the time after class to explain and give
examples and if you still don’t understand they will say: OK, I’ll send you more infor-
mation via email. So they are very friendly and even you can call them by their first
name not their surname which is making it very comfortable and easy going and it’s
good. (Aneta, Slovak)
In Poland, study, as I said, is demanding [. . .] they just expect us to gain a lot of
knowledge which is after all completely useless for us and that demand from an ordin-
ary student just to sit on the books and read, read, read and study, study, study and
only that and here is more like fun. We discuss, we are creating projects, we are
developing by creativity, which, yeah, it develops our creativity and it gives us the
opportunity to, we reconsider to discuss. (Krzysztof, Polish)
The teacher-student relationship is far more formal in CEE universities: the lec-
turers are seen as much more distant and often their expertise unquestionable. The
students are supposed to listen, take notes and respect their lecturers and generally
not ‘waste’ their lecturers’ time. In participants’ words:
It’s more [hesitates] authority. Authority, yeah, where the lecturer, there is a big dis-
tance between lecturers and students and usually lecturers say: oh if you have any
questions please ask but they don’t really mean it. (Aneta, Slovak)
Sometimes I realise that professors in Poland, I mean, I’m talking about Poland now,
they treat themselves as, like [chuckles] like we’re the bosses here and you are just
like, you are just addition to, we have our work, we don’t need you but you need us
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14. and it’s like that. Sometimes if you want something from your professor like help, he
just says sorry, I don’t have the time, come back to me later. But here, everyone, if
you ask for help, you usually get help immediately. So it’s better, better attitude to stu-
dent. (Robert, Polish)
Factual knowledge – two sides of a coin
There is a much greater focus on theory and broad background knowledge (coined
by some as encyclopaedic approach, see Kazellova 1995, cited in Perry 2005;
Holmes et al. 1995, cited in Hufton, Elliott, and Illushin 2002a) in the CEE educa-
tional systems in comparison to the Anglo-American models. Hufton, Elliott, and
Illushin 2002a suggest that the development of progressively higher-level intellec-
tual and metacognitive skills is achieved through a more immediate requirement for
memorisation. Therefore, unsurprisingly many of CEE interviewees underlined that
teaching back home is particularly theory ‘heavy’, much less practical than in the
UK and involves a lot of memorisation. Most of them heavily criticised their home
educational systems for being detached from real life, as the quotations below
illustrate:
[. . .] in Slovakia most of the learning is just, just learning by heart, all the things that
you get from books. Teacher just tells you that you’re gonna have a test, read this
book and that book and well, I’ll just ask questions from it. So it’s really just learning
not very practical things. Not the things you will need when you go to work and when
you finish school, I’ve just learned for the test and then I forgot 95% of all the things
I’ve learned because they were of no importance to me, because I knew I’ll never
gonna use these things again. It’s just to get the mark from the exam. But here when I
learn I know yes, I might use this, it could be valuable to me. So that’s the biggest
difference. (Piotr, Slovak)
Well, I quite enjoy studying in UK comparing to the Polish universities [. . .], study-
ing is just (the knowledge we can) more useful because we are studying things that
we will need in a future, not that they are useless knowledge [. . .]. For example
[. . .], my friend who is studying law in Lublin, in the university of Maria Sklo-
dowska-Curie – I think so, I’m not sure – one of his subjects is exploring the Bible
and he has. . .this is the part of a. . .ehm. . .module, he has to pass it and the ques-
tions are like what the Bible gives you in your life, for a student of law. (Krzysztof,
Polish)
This, again, suggests that the university’s curriculum principles discussed earlier
in this article – in particular those emphasising personalised and realistic learning
(Atlay 2008) – are of particular importance and valued by CEE students.
All the participants in this study saw the benefits of practical, easily applicable,
realistic knowledge underpinned by the personal development planning (PDP)
agenda (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education [NCIHE 1997]; Uni-
versities UK. 2007), which focuses on teaching and learning with employability in
mind, especially directed at enhancing students’ skills and abilities. However, hav-
ing strong theoretical foundations, more factual education and general knowledge
grounded in many fields may, in my opinion, facilitate meaningful learning and
adaptation to a new system. It has been suggested (see Biggs 1996; Marton Watkins
and Tang 1997) that memorisation (which can be seen a base for an encyclopaedic
approach) can lead to higher-order learning, where memorising and understanding
are seen as ‘interlocking processes’ (Watkins 2000).
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15. I found it particularly difficult to ‘stand by’ and not challenge students’ ideas,
especially on factual knowledge and the amount of learning expected in Central
Europe. This aspect of the study has been particularly troublesome for me as an
insider as over the years of working at the English university, I have realised that
reflecting and making connections may be easier when one has access to broader
knowledge in which new learning can be grounded. My recent experience of teach-
ing critical social psychology – a subject grounded in philosophy and history – has
brought a further observation of students wrestling with the subject, not having
enough of the background knowledge that could serve as a scaffold for their learn-
ing (McKenzie 2000; Van Der Stuyf 2002). Maybe I also see things from a differ-
ent perspective because I am not a student any more and I am more sentimental
about the value of the ‘knowledge heavy’ education I received.
A wind of change
As Bateson and Taylor (2004) observe, CEE post second world war educational
systems were strongly influenced by the late 19th
century German tradition, which
ascribed particular social roles to the universities: ‘serving the state, preparing com-
petent civil servants, and embedding a sense of national awareness and culture
(474). Moreover, it can be argued that CEE universities were more discipline-
focused and aimed at the production of highly, but narrowly, skilled work forces
(based on the Humboldtian concept of Bildung – broad skills development within a
given specialisation) and were more interested in academic subject development
than students’ personal development (Bateson and Taylor 2004). Such a positioning
of CEE universities (with their common teacher-centred pedagogy, ‘encyclopaedism,
overload, and excessively discipline-based approach’) (Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development [OECD] 1996, 123) can be counterposed to the
Anglo-American philosophy of ‘student-centred’ teaching and learning. As
Galbraith (2003) observes, education in a socialistic period became very specialised
and focused on academic knowledge development in narrowly defined disciplines
with the priorities set by the state (this, in my view, has contributed to the fact-ori-
ented teaching described above).
However, nowadays the situation of higher education in the CEE countries is
quite different. As Kwiek (2001, 2) observes, these countries ‘must face globalisa-
tion, market-driven, for-profit, value-for-money demands’ to stay ‘in the game’. He
also suggests that most probably in increasingly market-oriented environments, pro-
spective students will exert more customer orientation and the logic of economic
rationality would suggest that unreformed institutions will either have to be
reformed or lose their student body to other market-oriented providers, including
those abroad. Kwiek (2001) also points out that as a result of economic and politi-
cal pressures (including governmental strategies to reduce the scope of state respon-
sibilities and support deregulation, privatisation, liberalisation and marketisation),
higher education and the intellectual landscape will change radically, increasingly
resembling the Western one. This has already commenced with the Bologna Process
in 1999 (Kwiek 2001; Bateson and Taylor 2004) and has manifested itself both in
the introduction of some fees by the state universities (for evening and weekend
modes of study) and the creation of many private institutions (some of them excel-
lent and significant competitors to the state universities and others seen as of dubi-
ous quality but still giving an opportunity to many students to obtain a degree who
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16. perhaps otherwise would not engage with higher education at all – arguably follow-
ing the UK’s trend for widening participation). Moreover, as Bateson and Taylor
(2004, 476) suggest, with a growing number of opportunities and student mobility
across national borders, CEE universities face the same challenges as their Western
counterparts: ‘competition, demands for modernisation and continuous upkeep of
facilities, and the need to provide support for a diverse body of students on an indi-
vidual basis’.
Conclusions
Seeking an answer to a very complex question as to why CEE students seem to
adapt easily to the University of Bedfordshire system of education and achieve is
most certainly a difficult enterprise. Although some literature available supports the
idea that educational ethos and unique socio-historical circumstances might have
shaped students attitudes (Hufton, Elliott, and Illushin 2002a; 2002b; Perry 2005;
Roberts 2001; Allison 2000), there is a scarcity of research in this field, especially
comprehensive comparative studies of educational attitudes, values and beliefs as
well as achievement among CEE and other students. Most of the published work
concentrates on the Bologna Process (Kozma 2007; Kwiek 2001; Cerych 1995;
1997), the structure of schooling (especially secondary: tripartite versus comprehen-
sive, e.g. Roberts and Szumlicz 2000; OECD 1996; Kotasek 1996), or labour mar-
kets – especially since the expansion of European Union and ongoing labour
migration (Anderson et al. 2006; Currie 2007; Galasiński and Galasińska 2007). In
my research, interviewees were not directly questioned about the issue of CEE stu-
dents’ perceived adaptability and achievement, as I only became puzzled by it in
the course of conducting my research, followed by my own reflections. However, I
believe that unique historical and social conditions have contributed to the creation
of common characteristics amongst CEE students who seem to value education for
its own sake, and who are ambitious, self motivated, driven by higher needs such
as self actualisation and seeking satisfaction in learning and their future career.
Those students seem to have respect for knowledge and knowledge gatekeepers
such as academics. Even though the students themselves seem to be critical of
heavy theoretical, factual and impractical teaching in CEE universities, I see how
the sound factual knowledge and broader perspective give grounds to comprehen-
sion, interconnectivity and reflective practice and allow students to successfully pro-
gress through their studies in order to achieve their goals. New, exciting and
practical learning (offered by the University of Bedfordshire’s curriculum) that is
grounded in broad, general, sound knowledge can make the learning experience
meaningful and contribute to the development of the skills, confidence and self-reg-
ulatory abilities (Raiker 2010; Atlay 2008) that are crucial for students’ attainment,
academic achievement and employability (Kumar 2007; Atlay, Gaian and Kumar
2008). Metaphorically, when a Central East European seed is planted in the rich soil
of the University of Bedfordshire curriculum, it has ideal conditions to flourish and
experience ‘a deeply enjoyable intrinsically motivating experience’ – a state of flow
(Csikszentmihalyi 1975/2000; Elkington 2010).
I am under no illusion though that these characteristics can be generalised to all
CEE students or that they are static. On the contrary, the features I comment on in
this article seemed to be more visible in CEE students who came just after the
opening of the borders, initially mainly on Erasmus exchanges (usually the best stu-
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17. dents as they had to compete for the scholarships). Nowadays, it seems to be more
a matter of financial rather than intellectual ability. Therefore, those who can afford
and want to may study abroad without any restrictions, hence the British education
system may be attracting a variety of CEE students, including those whose aca-
demic achievement is not strong enough to enter the prestigious state universities in
their home countries and face the choice between paid education at home or abroad,
often choosing the latter option (for linguistic mastery and employability opportuni-
ties).
The progressive convergence of European systems is also likely to contribute to
CEE students’ adaptation to the University of Bedfordshire’s system. Therefore, I
speculate that with the gradual changes unifying education in Europe, students’ atti-
tudes will also become more homogeneous.
Moreover, the opening of the borders and political freedom can paradoxically
lessen the ethos of education in CEE countries as its historical role is fulfilled.
There is no enemy and therefore no need to fight and extol the value of education
in elevating national feelings. Education is not a matter of survival any more and
increasingly it may become a matter of value for money and a means to an end for
many students, irrespectively of their background.
Acknowledgement
I am indebted to all Central Eastern European students whose stories invited me to embark
on this reflective journey.
I thank Dr Kathryn Ellis and Dr Andrea Raiker for the support, encouragement and
insights they continue to give me in my work. I also would like to acknowledge the helpful
comments of two anonymous reviewers.
Notes
1. The academics acted as a community of critical friends, especially on a writing retreat,
where this article was subjected to rounds of peer feedback, and invoked an animated dis-
cussion touching upon many aspects of education, like for instance the widening partici-
pation agenda.
2. Central European University is an international graduate university in the social sciences
and humanities, based in Budapest, Hungary.
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