Macedonian Academic Profession Identity_Raw Data.sav

Macedonian Academic Profession in Search of Identity: Transition Never Ending<br>Paper AbstractThe context of Macedonian higher education has changed dramatically in the last fifteen years. The rapid increase in the number of public and private institutions, while diversifying the offers of higher education degrees in the country, did not provide better quality. The academic staff themselves produce rather small research outputs, and contribute little to the society’s development. Likewise, the chronic underfinancing of higher education and research, and an underdeveloped system of quality assurance, as well as the growing expectations for relevance and internationalization, put additional pressure on Macedonian academia. This paper presents an original empirical study on academic staff, and examines how they perceive changes in the environment of the academic profession, and how changes in their working conditions potentially influence their academic identity and wellbeing. These results are compared to European data and show that academic staff perceive deterioration in their working conditions. This makes the academic profession stressful and unattractive, and results in lower levels of overall academic wellbeing, as well as in threatened academic identity amongst the staff. Consequently, we could expect further decreases in motivation, work ethic and productivity in the academic profession, as well as an increase in the desire of academics to leave the country.<br>