There is no silence about the consolidation of higher schools: the leaders of Kaunas higher schools are discussing

On November 17, during the "Enlightenment" conference organized by students, the heads of three higher schools met in Kaunas: Vytautas the Great University (VDU) rector Juozas Augutis, Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) rector Petras Baršauskas and Kaunas college director dr. Mindaugas Misiūnas. The moderator of the discussion, Vice President of the Lithuanian Students' Union Andrius Zalitis, calmed the leaders' passions.

During the discussion, the merger of higher education institutions, the threats, opportunities and challenges of this process were discussed. The quality of higher education and the need for students with a broad education in the labor market were also discussed. For this reason, there has been talk of joint study programs and fields that may seem completely incompatible with each other, such as health and information technology or environmental science and economics. The leaders of all higher education institutions that participated in the discussion unanimously agreed that the consolidation process is necessary.

When it comes to higher education mergers, it is universities that are usually mentioned, while colleges are often forgotten and excluded from these discussions. For this reason, it was very interesting to hear the opinion of the college director about this process. He also agreed that the merger is necessary, but he called this process not the merger itself, but the unification of higher schools, which should be based on mutual understanding, leaving behind the personal ambitions of individual higher schools. In this way, in order to realize the general vision of Lithuanian higher education.

"Merging higher schools is probably an inevitable process in the future. We are glad that this topic was discussed during our conference, because the idea of the event was to interest students in topics that directly affect them, such as the problem of academic dishonesty, education and its nuances in our country. We want to change the culture and tell loudly not about success stories, but about things relevant to students, which often seem uninteresting at first glance," says Greta Šmaižytė, one of the organizers of the event and coordinator of the Academic Affairs Committee of the VMU Student Representation.

"Enlightenment 2016" began with a national test of academic knowledge, where a student of the ISM Higher School of Business and Economics performed best. At the conference, presentations on creativity, group work and time planning were also presented by prominent Lithuanian public figures such as Artūras Bulota, Tomas Nemura and Liudas Švipas.