The most important thing that will be taking place at a global level, and above all, at the European level, and which will necessarily affect us as a country, and this is not a prediction of mine, but knowledge to which I have come based on reading European documents that clearly say these things, that is to say, these things determine our obligations that arise from processes that will take place at the level of the European Union and overall at the level of the continent of Europe. And all of this, on the other hand, is affected by a global trend.
First of all, the long-term goal of the European Research Area is accelerating. Hence, the implementation of the strategic goal that already exists is also going faster, and that is the so-called digital transition and green transition. It’s called the dual or twin transition on the continent and at the EU level. It will accelerate as a result of the Covid experience. So, first the pandemic showed us that we can be productive as societies, as industries, as institutions, here the educational, scientific institutions are included and their close connection with economic productivity, that we can be productive if we fully consume, in their entire capacity, the tools given to us by IT, society, technological development in that respect, simply social-technical tools at the information technology level. So, maximum use of those capacities, deepening of those capacities. Europe will continue with an increasing deeper digitalization of the administering of the entire society. So now it’s no longer just about e-government, open government that we have been hearing about in the past decade and more at the EU level and here, but about even deeper essential digitalization of society. Something we witnessed last year, but now we will see more systemized.
Secondly, Europe for years now has been setting the goal for accelerated technological development as its strategic goal, economic and geopolitical, in the center of those goals, actually it’s not just one goal, but in the center of those goals, where technological production, meaning not only production of technology, but also innovation at a technological level and overall scientific innovation, should become one of the main products of Europe, in order to maintain its competitive advantage in regards to other global players. To simplify it so that it’s not so abstract, let’s say that the entire supremacy currently, game of supremacy between the great powers, between China and America for instance, is in the race for technological development. Technological development also means economic development today. This means that education, innovation and the economy are immanently connected. Not as it was before, ten years ago, let’s produce cadre that is demanded on the labour market and is cheap, vocational and cheap labour force, physical, manual labour force. Now the goal is for Europe to compete with innovations on the market of innovations, in order to maintain its competitive sharpness, even in a geopolitical sense.
Macedonia has been constantly reminded in the past two-three years that it should join the implementation of these goals. The economic development, according to the recommendations of IPA II, since 2017 is already directly linked to the innovation development. In that race, we do need to join Europe, and not offer ourselves as cheap physical labour force. We are invited to participate, we are expected to participate in that process, and for such a thing, deep reforms are needed. All those innovation processes today are fundamentally interdisciplinary. So it concerns in-depth interdisciplinarity, where even fields such as philosophy and technology are integrated so that, I don’t know, in order to add meaning to let’s say what artificial intelligence is, they have to, for example, raise the question of awareness. So, even those areas that previously seemed incompatible, now seem closely compatible. Not to give other examples. So, an in-depth, integrated, interdisciplinarity is what gives advantage to the leaders in this race for technological innovation, which is becoming now both an economic and geopolitical race. And the EU set itself a goal with the new strategy, European Research Area 2030, to strengthen its role on the global scene, which has declined, as they consider and is expected from the aspiring countries to participate equally in these processes. Therefore, I think that the latest reforms proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science, which we have seen at the primary and secondary level, should be deepened in the direction they have started, from what I know so far. They need to be raised also to the level of higher education and advanced research level, because with the classic disciplinary divisions, by not knowing this philosophy that I just presented to you now, we are out of the game. And according to the sectoral reforms that France proposed, we will remain far, far behind, on the tail in terms of education and innovation development, if these reforms are not implemented. So I hope, expect and hope that in our country it will be the main process in society next spring, next year, and that with this we will catch some joining with the almost identical processes, only raised at a higher level, which are taking place at the level of the EU member states and other equal members of the European Research Area and the higher education area in Europe, in which Macedonia, by the way, is an equal member.
translation: N. Cvetkovska
