Information note for ELFA members regarding the development of European higher education and its possible impact on law studies in Europe
Clarifications to the Declaration
On 25th of May 1998 on the occasion of the 800 anniversary of the Sorbonne, the ministers of education of France, Germany, Italy and the UK signed a declaration urging for the development of a European higher education space that would match and support the economic, commercial and financial market launched by the European Union over the last forty years. This declaration developed a so-called 3.5.8-model of regular structure of university education (three years of studies leading to a bachelor degree, five years to a masters degree and eight years to a doctor’s degree). This declaration was followed by the joint declaration of European ministers of education convened in Bologna on the 19th of June 1999 (the Bologna Declaration). It insisted on achieving a greater compatibility and comparability of the systems of higher education in Europe (EU and associated countries). The Bologna Declaration should have a follow-up in Prague in May 2001 for which preparations are already under way.
The ELFA board is well aware of the implications of the process commenced in Paris and Bologna and of its impact on legal studies and access to the various legal professions. It considers it as part of ELFA’s task to facilitate cooperation between European Law schools in this process through various means, including proposals to the relevant competent bodies, and to member and non-member law faculties. Therefore, the board has prepared this information note as a follow-up to publishing the Bologna declaration in ELFA-Info 4/2000, p. 39. The board hopes to continue the discussion started already during the Amsterdam meeting on the contents of the Paris/Bologna Declarations and the problems and opportunities which its implementation in law faculties may create. The whole subject matter will be thoroughly debated at the annual conference in Milan on 23-24 February 2001. A more detailed questionnaire will be prepared by the board and sent to ELFA members in January 2001. Any prior questions or comments by member law-faculties or individuals on the ELFA website are welcome. Members will find there (http://elfa.bham.ac.uk/) a link to the Bologna declaration itself and links to many other relevant websites.
II. The basic aims and contents of the Sorbonne/Bologna Declarations
The main thrust of the Declaration lies in proposing the creation of a European space for higher education. This is not supposed to be done within the framework of EU institutions (even though they participate in the elaboration process) but via an autonomous effort of the participating countries represented by their Ministers of Education and by the Rectors of universities. According to its wording, the Bologna Declaration does not aim at a harmonisation of higher education in Europe but at more transparency to increase mobility of students and professors. It recognises the thrust of competition in a globalized higher education market especially that coming from US-American universities. European universities, despite their high quality of education, have difficulty competing due to the lack of transparency of grades, the different structure of curricula, the non-recognition of degrees and the like. The Bologna Declaration does not explicitly focus on academic degrees but on the labour market: the European space for higher education is to improve the chances of graduates in a globalised market for a high-grade work force.
The Declaration is also faced with the problem of the high number of dropouts who should have a chance to get some recognition of their qualifications after a minimum period of three years.
The Bologna Declaration lists four main requirements of this future European space for higher education:
1. Adoption of a system of easily readable and comparable degrees, also through the implementation of a “Diploma Supplement, in order to promote European citizens‘ employability and the international competitiveness of the European higher education system.
2. Adoption of a system essentially based on two cycles, undergraduate and graduate.
a) The first cycle should last a minimum of three years and finish with a bachelor degree. The degree awarded after the first cycle should also be relevant to the European labour market as an appropriate level of qualification.
b) The second cycle should lead to the masters and/or doctors degree as already recognized in many European countries.
3. Establishment of a system of credits – such as the ECTS system – as a proper means of promoting the most widespread student mobility. Credits could also be acquired in non-higher education contexts, including lifelong learning, provided they are recognised by the Universities concerned. (ECTS is also a topic for the ELFA Milan conference)
4. Promotion of mobility by overcoming obstacles to the effective exercise of free movement with particular attention to:
a) for students, access to study and training opportunities and to related services;
b) for teachers, researchers and administrative staff, recognition and validation of periods spent in a European context researching, teaching and training, without prejudicing their statutory rights via:
- promotion of European co-operation in quality assurance with a view to developing comparable criteria and methodologies;
- promotion of the necessary European dimensions in higher education, particularly with regard to curricula development, inter-institutional co-operation, mobility schemes and integrated programmes of study, training and research.
III. Clarifications by Dr. Haug
The later controversies surrounding the Bologna Declaration have to some extent been clarified by Dr. Haug, Secretary of EAIE, in a paper given at a conference in Maastricht on the 2nd of December 1999. As a justification for the Bologna Declaration and its main goals he mentions four changes in the global environment of education:
1. The emergence of a real European labour market, which is bound to shape a good deal of university offerings and their functioning in the years ahead: it is unlikely that the combination between a high rate of unemployment of graduates and a shortage of highly educated young people in key areas will be accepted much longer by society;
2. The end of the strong numerical expansion at universities, which has already started in some countries and will soon start in several others; the kind of „“natural“ growth which universities enjoyed in the last decades is nearing its end and this entails a number of consequences. Many universities will have to do something which they were not at all accustomed to do, i. e. compete for students, especially since public funding in most countries is in one way or another dependent on student enrolment. This is something really new in many higher education communities; it can be expected that students’ choice will increase and that institutions will have to pay more attention to their needs and satisfaction than in the past;
3. There is a considerable growth of new providers, many of them from abroad; this will add to the choice available to students and for the first time ever one may be in a position to see what they choose if they have a real possibility to choose from a spectrum of different types of education from home and abroad. This raises fundamental questions which are however easy to ignore when other factors nourish the growth of annual intakes into higher education in a particular country: why would students choose a foreign provider, who may be rather expensive, rather than staying within their own national and often traditional system which comes for free? As long as there was no choice, there was no question and hence no need to provide an answer; in future, universities will need to come up with answers.
4. The fourth major change is that the accountability of universities for the use of public funds is likely to increase significantly in future; it seems particularly unlikely that public funding will be available to support institutions and students for studies much beyond the normal duration of studies; a distinct move in this direction has already started.
In the opinion of Dr. Haug, higher education is strongly influenced by three main developments:
1. First, it seems essential that one should close the competitive gap at home; this would mean in particular that higher education institutions in Europe should endeavour to put together and publicise the kind of educational opportunities students from the rest of the world would like to find on offer in Europe; closing the competitive gap at home would also require that the limitations imposed on some of our best non-university institutions, which severely penalise them in the international arena, should be lifted.
2. Secondly, it has become vitally important to regulate transnational education; there is currently a legal vacuum in this area, with most countries ignoring this new type of education in their legal system; the aim of legislative action in this area should not be to try and prohibit transnational education; attempts to do so would most likely be doomed anyway; but it has become essential to differentiate between “legitimate” educational activities and those which do not offer sufficient guarantee and are not worth the time and money of our students. Quality transnational education broadens the choice of students and may represent a valuable alternative to traditional education. It is amazing that the possible inclusion of “educational services” into the upcoming round of negotiations within the World Trade Organisation does not receive more attention in Europe,; neither governments, nor the press or higher education itself seem to care: the vast majority of rectors and international relations managers seem to be totally unaware of, or uninterested in these developments, however important they may be for the future of higher education as a key area in the worldwide competition.
3. Thirdly, European higher education needs to learn to compete better in the world markets for higher education; the real problem is not that there are so many US campuses in Europe or in Asia, but rather that there are so few European campuses in the US, Latin America or other regions in the world. This is an area of paramount importance, and it seems essential that European universities should mobilise their energies and resources to compete in the world market: through the setting up of the type of courses which may suit the needs of overseas students, through increased information and marketing efforts to attract students (including paying students, not only exchange students) from other continents. In order to be able to fully enter this competition, European universities need to become much more present on site and to get organised. Contrary to what is heard from many in continental Europe, universities from the UK, the US or Australia do not attract foreign students just because they teach in English: they have also invested for years, and sometimes decades, to offer the right type of courses, user-friendly student services (e.g. accommodation) and understandable degrees, and to publicise and explain their offering through permanent representations and recruitment efforts on site. The majority of universities in Europe still lack the mindset and the experience required in the growing competition for students and the related revenues. This is most conspicuous in certain key areas, such as registration procedures, non-educational student services (e.g. accommodation) and of course, sadly enough, visa policies; the visa policies applied by several European countries have had a disastrous impact on their image as potential destinations for academic purposes among students and faculty from most of the rest of the world.
In a preparatory report to the Bologna conference, Dr. Haug insisted that “given the scope and complexity of the spectrum of issues covered, (it) will not deal with the following items, even though they are an important and integral part of the overall architecture of higher education in Europe:
· European directives setting out specific rules for the preparation of, and access to certain regulated professions;
· structure of the curricula leading to these professions in the European Union.”
A later paper of IIS and CRE, namely the Education Ministers’ and the European University Rectors’ Associations insists that the Bologna Declaration is not just a political statement but a binding commitment to an action programme:
The action programme set out in the Declaration must be regarded as being based on a clearly defined common goal, a deadline and a set of specified objectives:
- a clearly defined common goal: to create a European space for higher education in order to enhance the employability and mobility of citizens and to increase the international competitiveness of European higher education;
- a deadline: the European space for higher education should be completed in 2010;
- a set of specified objectives;
- the adoption of a common framework of readable and comparable degrees, also through the implementation of the “Diploma Supplement”;
- the introduction of undergraduate and postgraduate levels in all countries, with first degrees no shorter than 3 years and relevant to the labour market;
- ECTS-compatible credit systems also covering lifelong learning activities;
- a European dimension in quality assurance, with comparable criteria and methods;
- the elimination of remaining obstacles to the free mobility of students (as well as trainees and graduates) and teachers (as well as researchers and higher education administrators).