The Mythology of higher education and its regional context

ENEducation is one of the areas affected by economic globalization. Regional tendencies complement global ones as every region in the world exhibits its own specific characteristics. Europe exhibits specific characteristics, and it can be divided into sub-regions: old-time members of the European Union, new members of the European Union who were earlier part of the socialist bloc, and countries in Eastern and Southeastern Europe which do not belong to the European Union. Higher learning in Lithuania is experiencing transformation on several levels - global and regional (first of all inspired by the educational politics of the European Union) and at the same time it is affected by a socialist legacy and by the particularities of national culture. The socialist context undoubtedly influences the mythology of education. By following the analogy of the analysis of political mythology, we can delineate four areas of mythology in current higher learning, which in part are global, but in large part are apparently determined by the Soviet experience of present-day society. These are the manifestations of the mythology of the structure of education, the mythology of quantity, the mythology of quality, and the mythology of the power of will. The article discusses myths that are widely held in society and calls them into question while providing factual data about the status of higher learning. [From the publication]