Von Carola Padtberg-Kruse. 15 Jahre nach Unterzeichnung der Bologna-Erklärung haben sich Studenten an Druck und Vorschriften gewöhnt, doch sie trauen dem Bachelor nicht. Auch Auslandserfahrung und kritisches Denken kommen an Hochschulen seitdem zu kurz.
Sie wurde kritisiert und gelobt, verwünscht und beworben: Vor 15 Jahren unterzeichneten die Bildungsminister von 29 europäischen Staaten die Bologna-Erklärung. Die Studienreform krempelte das Hochschulwesen komplett um. Das Ziel: Es sollte schneller, strukturierter und internationaler studiert werden. Mehr...
Verliebt, versagt und zwangsexmatrikuliert
. "Ich habe eine Diplomarbeit abgegeben und den Bachelor bekommen": Nach 15 Jahren verursacht die Bologna-Reform Frust und auch Freude. Zehn persönliche Geschichten. Mehr...
Wer ist Mister Bologna?
. Vor 15 Jahren wurde das Bachelor-Master-System beschlossen. Was kaum jemand weiß: Die größte europäische Studienreform hat ein deutscher Beamter im Alleingang eingefädelt. Eine Begegnung mit Hans Rainer Friedrich. Mehr...
15th Anniversary of the Bologna Declaration
On 19 June 1999 about 30 countries came together and signed the Bologna Declaration expressing their commitment to enhance the European area for higher education and to promote the European system of higher education worldwide. The day earmarked the laying of the cornerstones of the pan-European process.
Happy Anniversary to all of us!
Bologna Seminars 2010-2012
Bologna Seminars 2010-2012. More...
Bologna Process - National Reports
Bologna Process - National Reports
Older national reports: Austria 2001 - available
*National report submitted by Kazakhstan for the admission to the EHEA in March 2010. More...
Bologna Process - Main documents
Background documents of the Bucharest Ministerial Conference and Third Bologna Policy Forum (2012)
Bologna Process - Work Programme - Social Dimension
The Social Dimension is one of the overarching Bologna Process themes, appearing for the first time in the Prague Communiqué (2001) where “…Ministers reaffirmed the need, recalled by students to take account of the social dimension in the Bologna process...”. At the following ministerial conferences, the social dimension was described as an integral part of the EHEA and a necessary condition for enhancing the attractiveness and competitiveness of the EHEA (the Bergen Communiqué, 2005).
With the London Communiqué of May 2007, Ministers responsible for higher education agreed on a common definition for the objective of the social dimension: “We share the societal aspiration that the student body entering, participating in and completing higher education at all levels should reflect the diversity of our populations”. Further on, Ministers concurred in setting national strategies and policies, including action plans and reports on their progress at the next ministerial meeting. It was also recommended to work towards defining comparable data and indicators for the social dimension of higher education.
In Leuven/Louvain-La-Neuve, Ministers committed further on to "…set measureable targets to widen participation of underrepresented groups in higher education, to be reached by the end of the next decade…" (the Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve Communiqué, 2009).
In Bucharest, acknowledging that “…widening access to higher education is a precondition for societal progress and economic development…” the Ministers agreed “…to adopt national measures for widening overall access to quality higher education”. The Ministers also committed to step up their efforts towards underrepresented groups through developing the social dimension of higher education, reducing inequalities and providing adequate student support services, counselling and guidance, flexible learning paths and alternative access routes, including recognition of prior learning (the Bucharest Communiqué, 2012).
Furthermore, the Ministers undertook to develop a system of voluntary peer learning and reviewing by 2013 in countries which request it and initiate a pilot project to promote peer learning on the social dimension of higher education which will assist EHEA countries in developing, implementing and monitoring social dimension policies and support structured and systematic peer learning among countries and institutions.
The BFUG agreed to streamline 2012-2015 work structures by reducing the number of working groups. The new structure would allow the BFUG to play its role for strategic policy guidance, while concentrating on the key policy areas and, at the same time, it would allow a close interaction between and better implementation of the interlinked policy issues that are arranged under one working group. Hence, for the period 2012-2015, the Working Group on the Social Dimension and Lifelong Learning will deal with the respective two policy issues of higher education.
Further background information can be accessed at:
- Report from the Bologna Process Working Group (2007) - Key issues for the European Higher Education Area – Social Dimension and Mobility;
- Annex 2 of the 2007 working group report - Template for National Strategies;
- Bologna Process Stocktaking Report (2009);
- The Bologna Process in Higher Education in Europe (2009): Key indicators on the social dimension and mobility – Eurostat & Eurostudent;
- Focus on Higher Education in Europe (2010): The Impact of the Bologna Process.
Catalogue of good practices in Social Dimension implementation in Higher Education . More...
Bologna Process - Work Programme - Transparency tools
The Bologna Process acknowledges that one of the biggest assets of European higher education is its diversity. The Sorbonne Joint Declaration argues for diversity in the service of society: "we owe our students and our society at large, a higher education system in which they are given the best opportunities to seek and find their own area of excellence." The Prague Communiqué (2001) makes this normative more explicit: "programmes leading to a degree may, and indeed should, have different orientations and various profiles in order to accommodate a diversity of individual, academic and labour market needs." The Leuven/ Louvain-la-Neuve Communiqué (2009) specifies that not only the diversity of study programmes is a response of the higher education institutions to the needs of the society, but the HEI's themselves are responsive to the wider needs of the society through the diversity of their missions.
Coordinating a diverse system requires vision and sensitiveness to subtleties in issuing judgements on the degree in which a higher education institution or a study programme is reaching its societal purpose. In order to overcome the oversimplifying approach "one size fits all", the ministers committed in Leuven/ Louvain-la-Neuve (2009) to "uphold the highly valued diversity of our education systems" in their strive to create a EHEA whose basic principles include quality and transparency, as stated in the Bergen Communiqués (2005). This normative will be realized through public policies which will "fully recognize the value of various missions of higher education, ranging from teaching and research to community services and engagement in social cohesion and cultural development", as explained in the Leuven/ Louvain-la-Neuve Communiqué (2009).
The Bologna Process has always been concerned with making the diversity of the EHEA more transparent. Quality assurance, qualifications framework and recognition, together with the tools designed to facilitate their implementation, such as Diploma Supplement, ECTS and Lisbon Recognition Convention, have contributed substantially to this goal. The ministers noted in Leuven/ Louvain-la-Neuve (2009) that, besides the above mentioned instruments, "there are several initiatives designed to develop mechanisms for providing more detailed information about higher education institutions across the EHEA to make their diversity more transparent". "Such mechanisms, including those helping higher education systems and institutions to identify and compare their respective strengths, should be developed in close consultation with the key stakeholders. These transparency tools need to relate closely to the principles of the Bologna Process, in particular quality assurance and recognition, which will remain our priority, and should be based on comparable data and adequate indicators to describe the diverse profiles of higher education institutions and their programmes."
Transparency tools often referred to include:
- Registers offering comparable information on higher education institutions/study programmes. More...
Bologna Process - Work Programme - Recognition
If you have questions concerning the recognition of your qualifications, please contact the national information centre in the country concerned. You will find a complete list of national information centres on the ENIC-NARIC website.
The purpose of recognition is to make it possible for learners to use their qualifications from one education system in another education system (or country) without losing the real value of those qualifications.
The main international legal text that aims to further the fair recognition of qualifications is the Council of Europe/UNESCO Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education in the European Region (Lisbon Recognition Convention).
Like any legal text, the Convention must be put into practice. The recognition of qualifications falls within the competence of each country. In most cases, this means that higher education institutions are responsible for the recognition of qualifications for the purpose of further study whereas professional bodies or employers are responsible for recognition for the purposes of the labour market.
Tools that facilitate the recognition of qualifications are the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) and the Diploma Supplement (DS).
To help develop good practice and a common understanding of recognition, the Council of Europe, UNESCO/CEPES and the European Commission coordinate the ENIC and NARIC Networks. The Networks develop good practice and policy, whereas individual member centres may provide information on the recognition of qualifications as well as the qualifications frameworks and education systems of the countries for which they are responsible. You may find a list of all centres as well as a description of the Networks and much other useful information on the ENIC-NARIC website. This site also contains links to other resources. You may also access an information disk on the Bologna Process, which contains valuable information on recognition, too.
In 2007, all countries of the Bologna Process submitted national action plans to improve the recognition of qualifications. An ENIC/NARIC working party has analysed the national action plans and produced a very detailed report with recommendations for the various actors involved on how to further improve recognition procedures and practice:
Report to the BFUG on the Analysis of the 2007 National Action Plans for Recognition, prepared by Andrejs Rauhvargers and Agnese Rusakova. More...