| Author (Person) | Davies, Howard |
|---|---|
| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.9, No.35, 23.10.03, p23 |
| Publication Date | 23/10/2003 |
| Content Type | News |
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By Howard Davies Date: 23/10/03 IT IS five years since Claude Allègre, France's former education minister, invited his British, German and Italian colleagues to mark out the lines along which their higher education systems might converge. Within a year of their Sorbonne declaration, a further 25 governments had injected sufficient substance and momentum to trigger the "Bologna Process". Subsequent meetings of European ministers in Prague and Berlin have seen the number of signatory countries grow to 40. Things are moving fast. So, what are the principal commitments required by Bologna? First, course provision will be organized into two distinct cycles - bachelors and masters - with a doctoral cycle on the agenda for 2005. Second, universities and governments will promote mobility by ratifying the Lisbon Convention on the Recognition of Academic Qualifications and by making full use of the European credit transfer system and the diploma supplement. Third, they will work towards mutually acceptable quality assurance methodologies. This is convergence, of course, not harmonization. But such has been the force of the groundswell that the European Commission, despite its limited legal competence, has been able to exert a strong steer. It sponsored the important Trends III report - launched this year by the European University Association (EUA) - which surveys the implementation of Bologna country by country. In fact progress has been uneven, which is why last month's Berlin communiqué lays down clear targets, supported by robust follow-up to ensure successful outcomes in 2005. Laggard countries have to move smartly or risk the credibility of their qualification systems being eroded. This is why Françoise Dupuis, education minister of the francophone community in Belgium, has posted a draft decree on her personal web page for the fastest and widest canvas of opinion. The Commission has also funded the quality culture and joint masters pilot projects, managed by the EUA and now ending their first phases. Both have been trail-blazers. Meanwhile, the education and culture directorate-general (DG EAC) Erasmus Mundus programme, currently going through co-decision, is a flagship venture intended to emulate Fulbright and to forge a Bologna-compliant joint masters template. It is in joint masters courses - particularly those collectively designed, validated, delivered and owned outside EU contractual frameworks - that the likely pressures of convergence can be seen in microcosm. Transnational collaboration by universities is bound, one way or another, to be subject to regulation within the internal market. Portability of grants, consumer protection, intellectual property rights, recognition of professional qualifications and right of establishment, access by third country students, cross-border service delivery in an environment of incompatible funding and fee regimes - all these could impinge on commitments which, as far as Bologna is concerned, are not legally binding. Indeed, the signs are clear that, post-enlargement, the Bologna Process will be subsumed within the 2000 Lisbon agenda, aimed at making the EU the world's most dynamic marketplace. As the European Higher Education Area (inspired by Bologna) converges with the European Research Area (inspired by Lisbon) to yield the Europe of Knowledge, as national systems reform, and as the acquis beds down in the outcomes of the draft constitutional treaty - it is reasonable to expect tectonic shifts in the medium term, with the European Court of Justice called upon to iron out some of the creases. And let's not forget the "other" Bologna. In 2000, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) initiated an interministerial deliberative process - a Bologna Process to stimulate entrepreneurship, small- and medium-sized enterprises, innovation and knowledge transfer. The next meeting is scheduled for Istanbul in 2004 - by which time DG EAC and research directorate-general (DG RTD) will have reported on their consultation on the "role of universities in the Europe of knowledge", which addressed precisely these issues. Look out also, therefore, for signs of converging Bolognas.
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| Subject Categories | Culture, Education and Research |
