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Contents | Executive Summary | How to obtain this publication | Additional information
The following OECD assessment and recommendations summarise Chapter 4 of the Economic survey of Belgium published on 13 March 2007.
Contents
How could the efficiency in tertiary education be improved?
Tertiary education has expanded rapidly over the past several decades, turning the system from having an elite orientation to providing tertiary education to a much larger share of each generation. In the process, the low educational attainment of the population has been increased, setting Belgium on course to having a relatively high human capital endowment. The tertiary system is currently based on the principles of open access, low tuition fees, and the right of students to get a second chance after a first failure in higher education. Some measures have been taken at the community level to further improve the quality of tertiary education, such as adapting the curriculum, introducing a system of learning accounts, limiting time to graduation, giving greater admission possibilities based on professional experience and enhancing competition between tertiary education institutions. However, there is a concern that the improvement of quality will be difficult to sustain in an environment of rising enrolment without a corresponding increase of funding. Tuition fees are at present too low to provide significant funding to raise quality. The low levels of tuition fees also imply that many students consider tertiary education as a free good. Enrolment rates are therefore high in the first year, where there is limited initial screening, but the failure rate is high at the end of the first year and leads to a frequent change of study fields. A first measure to enhance the efficiency of the tertiary education system would be to secure a better match between capabilities of the students and the requirements of the studies. This is best done by strengthening screening systems, either at the upper-secondary level or at entry into tertiary education. However, directing students through more extensive counselling could also help.
Educational attainment and enrolment in tertiary education, 2003
Source: OECD (2006), Education at a Glance.
Another response to these problems would be to enhance price signals. On the side of the tertiary education institutions, raising tuition fees to higher cost-recovery levels would provide for an independent revenue source that would depend on the ability to attract students, thus giving the institutions the financing needed to adapt their supply and quality of teaching. On the student side, higher tuition fees would give an incentive to match capabilities and choice of studies as well as an encouragement to reduce study time. Should tuition fees eventually be raised, financial barriers to access might become an issue. Because capital markets do not accept intangible investments in human capital as collateral, tuition fees cannot be a stand-alone measure and accessibility should be secured through the introduction of income-contingent student loans, possibly combined with means-tested direct student grants. Such a combination of measures would also counter the social bias in tertiary education. Moreover, an important contribution of tuition fees would be to further stimulate competition between the tertiary education institutions. However, to alleviate asymmetric information problems and to allow students to make informed choices, recent measures to disseminate relevant information concerning the quality of education should be expanded and combined with career counselling regarding future labour market prospects. As an alternative to increasing tuition fees, the government could consider introducing other forms of economic incentives, so as to encourage students to make an efficient use of the tertiary education system.
How to obtain this publication
The Policy Brief (pdf format) can be downloaded. It contains the OECD assessment and recommendations but not all of the charts included on the above pages.
The complete edition of the Economic survey of Belgium 2007 is available from:
- SourceOECD for subscribing institutions and many libraries
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OLISnet, under "Publication Locator", for government officials with accounts ( subscribe)
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Additional information
For further information please contact the Belgium Desk at the OECD Economics Department at eco.survey@oecd.org. The OECD Secretariat's report was prepared by Jens Hoj, Ekkehard Ernst and Stefaan Ide under the supervision of Patrick Lenain.
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