A MODEL OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN ECONOMICS FOR THE DIGITAL AGE

In the past few years one can observe the development of public perception regarding the excess of highly educated workforce in the labour market of the Republic of Croatia. The excess refers to social sciences, in particular the field of economics. It should be noted that the notion of education in economics in the Republic of Croatia covers both macroeconomic and microeconomic areas. These programmes are carried out at business schools, faculties and departments of economics of Croatian universities. Along with this misperception, the general public disregards the fact that in practice many business operation tasks are frequently performed by people with non-economic backgrounds. One of the reasons for this situation is the failure of professional organisations to campaign for legal protection of their profession through well-defined educational frameworks and making the membership in the Chamber of Economists a precondition for working as an economist. On the other hand, there is a wide-spread view that the system of education in economics is of poor quality, and therefore graduates are incapable of performing a wide range of tasks in the economic/business domain. Looking only at higher education, this general view is reflected in the situation where other higher education institutions have started teaching traditionally economic courses (e.g. "Agricultural Economics" at faculties of agriculture or "Financial and Actuarial Mathematics" at mathematics departments). In addition to these direct encroachments, there are also indirect ones, such as when faculties of electrical engineering in their computer science programmes educate information managers. In the modern digital age, knowledge is more than ever the primary business resource. In these circumstances, the question is how to protect the dignity of both the economic profession and higher education in economics in the Republic of Croatia. It seems that the best and most urgently needed solution would be to change the quality paradigm of higher education in economics in the Republic of Croatia. To achieve this, we must strive to design and build a high-quality system of education in economics that will be capable of providing optimum education for the new digital age.