Oxford University Lithuanian Society was grateful to have had Juras Banys, vice-rector of Vilnius University and an Oxford alumni, as a speaker on research opportunities in Lithuania.
Vilnius University is one of the oldest and most famous higher education establishments in Eastern and Central Europe. In fact, its campus is the only representative model of Lithuania in the Mini-Europe park in Brussels. The University was founded in 1579 and now it has twelve faculties, seven institutes, four study and research centres, three university hospitals, the oldest library in Lithuania, a centre for IT development, an observatory, a botanical garden and a church. It covers all subject areas apart from agriculture and arts.
The university is well-funded. The university cooperates with foreign scientists. The university's History and Philosophy departments have been recently refurbished. So far so good: both in anaphoras and prospects for future students. Take care of the sounds and the sense will take care of itself, said Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But then a baby cried from somewhere in the audience, denying thus the rhetoric.
The teaching itself is sometimes miserable. Economics is a highly-competitive subject in Lithuania, but once you embark on it, the horizon appears much closer than you thought it would be, and you find yourself not in the sea, but in an enclosed basin.
However, the general concern revolved around the same 'Lithuania and Lithuanians abroad' question. This remained the case even when the heterogeneous audience, featuring current students and alumni from the universities across the UK, was divided by the OxLitSoc president into five subject-based groups to formulate specific, subject-related questions. The questions were anything but specific and subject-related. How can Lithuania lure back the students which have left her to seek their fortune abroad? What can Lithuania offer to those who are willing to come back? What opportunities are there for graduates if they resolved to return?
You cannot hope for a victory if you do not even buy a lottery ticket. There are calls and competitions. Make an application. At least send a message to let the others know that you exist.
And misspelling exists not only in the Lithuanian language: spelling is either right or wrong whichever language you use. Go to Lithuania or remain in the UK: science either is or is not, and nationality has nothing to do with it. As Banys emphasized, science does not have borders.
But then there is another problem, as it was identified by one of the participants. Lithuania is rather small and its resources are rather meagre. What to do if one is too smart for this country? Won't (s)he get discouraged? What a nightmare it would be for this student from Oxbridge, this self-made (wo)man Coriolanus, to find himself or herself surrounded by a bunch of intellectually deficient students from Vilnius University!
That for sure would be a nightmare, because those students who remained in Lithuania are by no means less bright. Places at Vilnius University are highly competitive, and a pupil has to get no less than 90% in his school exams to get a funded place. If the teaching at university is not of the highest standard, this does not apply to the learning skills of the students. Together with them one would be able to improve and to modernize the current situation. It is a real shame if the Oxbridge (wo)man feels too special for the country that raised him or her up.
We should remember that when we were at primary school our teachers were more intelligent than we were at that stage. The same applies to our teachers at secondary school and, hopefully, to our lecturers and professors at university. I wonder what would happen if suddenly all Oxford tutors stopped teaching because their students still lack MAs and PhDs?
Have you read the Lithuanian fairy tale about Jonas, an untutored and mocked countryman? In the end of the story he surpasses, in his knowledge, his educated friends. And it is precisely he who wins the golden pot.