PRESUMPTIVE CORRELATIONS BETWEEN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN AND EDUCATION & TRAINING: NECESSARY PRECONDITIONS FOR UNIVERSITIES’ ACTIONS

Abstract

The growing complexity of modern economics and the protracted process of economic downturn stimulate broad investigation pursuing identification the essential boosters of the economics and possible causes of current embarrassments.
Some economists as Colander, D. C.; Holt, R. P. F.; Rosser, J. B. (2004), in the vein of ecological economics, believe that the neoclassical “holy trinity” of rationality, greed, and equilibrium, is being replaced by the holy trinity of purposeful behavior, enlightened self-interest, and sustainability, considerably broadening the scope of what is the mainstream.
In this paper the attempt is made to investigate the vigor of one of the fundamentals of the current economics. That is quality of manpower acting in the economics and relevance of it in circumstances when the society consumes more and more.
It is assumed among many causes of economic downturn a whole chain of interconnected reasons. At the very beginning of the chain supposed the erosion of spiritual values of acting economic community members. It is claiming that disremembered and muted spiritual values released greediness, boosted corruption, undercut the confidence between partners in the article. Those circumstances grounded conditions and influenced the emerging and afterwards consecutive fall of the expanded fictional business pyramids in many countries. Globalism of economic downturn demonstrates that those circumstances are not only local.
In that connection it is important to have a look to relevance of education and training of human resources as well as to investigate the essentials of education including cultivation of the spirituality of graduates in every study programme.
Discussing content of study programmes adequate attention to interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary study programmes is underlined. It is mentioned that those programmes could enable educating pathfinders with the broader scope of knowledge and skills. Those graduates could become the leaders in making reasonable sustainable long-run oriented innovations in the industry and society.
Maintaining the European concept of worth of university’s diversity development of entrepreneurial universities with clear specific mission and regional involvement is supported as other essential improvement relevant to the current situation in the education and training field of the postmodern European society.
In the article University ranking as political instrument for enhancing of their quality is overviewed.
It is stated in the article that strenghtening the autonomy of the universities as well as increasing investments in education and training are enabling preconditions for the improvement of the performances of universities in European countries. The specific accent is made to the fact that relations of autonomy and financing as well as quality of universities are inseparable.
Main objective of the article is to discuss the presumptive correlations between economic downturn and education & training system disclosing necessary preconditions enabling universities for relevant actions.