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Bologna
Process and its use in the Holy State University
In the Holy State University we are using similar educational guidelines as in universities in the United States and European Union. To ensure similarity in education, we adhere to the provisions and principles of the Bologna Process, accepted by American and European educational institutions.
From public
educational resources The purpose of the Bologna Process (or Bologna Accords) is the creation of the European Higher Education Area by making academic degree standards and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible throughout Europe, in particular under the Lisbon Recognition Convention. It is
named after the place it was proposed, the University of
Bologna, with the signing in 1999 of the Bologna declaration
by Education Ministers from 29 European countries. It was
opened up to other countries signatory to the European
Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe; further
governmental meetings have been held in Prague (2001),
Berlin (2003), Bergen (2005), London (2007), and Leuven
(2009). Before the signing
of the Bologna declaration, the Magna Charta
Universitatum had been issued at a meeting of university
rectors celebrating the 900th anniversary of the University
of Bologna – and thus of European universities – in 1988.
One year before the Bologna declaration, education ministers
Claude Allegre (France), Jürgen Rüttgers (Germany), Luigi
Berlinguer (Italy) and Baroness Blackstone (UK) signed the
Sorbonne declaration in Paris 1998, committing themselves to
"harmonizing the architecture of the European Higher
Education system". It is a common
misconception that the Bologna Process is an EU initiative.
The Bologna Process currently has 47 participating
countries, whereas there are only 27 Member States of the
EU. While the European Commission
is an important contributor to the Bologna Process, the
Lisbon Recognition Convention was actually prepared by the
Council of Europe and members of the Europe Region of
UNESCO.
Signatories
This makes Monaco
and San Marino the only members of the Council of Europe
which did not adopt the Bologna Process (although they might
consider joining once France and Italy have implemented it).
All member states of the EU are participating in the
Process. Other countries eligible to join the initiative are
Belarus. The following
organizations are also part of the follow-up of the Process:
ESU, EUA, EURASHE, EI, ENQA, UNICE as well as the Council of
Europe, the European Commission and UNESCO. Other networks
at this level include ENIC, NARIC and EURODOC.
Framework The basic framework
adopted is of three cycles of higher education
qualification. As outlined in the Bergen Declaration
of 2005, the cycles are defined in terms of qualifications
and European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS)
credits:
In most cases, these
will take 3, 2, and 3 years respectively to complete. The
actual naming of the degrees may vary from country to
country. One academic year
corresponds to 60 ECTS-credits that are equivalent to
1,500–1,800 hours of study. The new model comes closer to
the North American and Japanese systems. It gives greater
weight to practical training and to intensive research
projects. The way credits are measured reflects how hard a
student has worked. The new evaluation methods reflect not
only a student's performance on exams, but also his or her
lab experiments, presentations, hours spent on study,
innovation capacities, and so forth.
Goals The Bologna Process
was a major reform created with the claimed goal of
providing responses to issues such as the public
responsibility for higher education and research, higher
education governance, the social dimension of higher
education and research, and the values and roles of higher
education and research in modern, globalized, and
increasingly complex societies with the most demanding
qualification needs.
Academic aspects The requirement of
60 ECTS per year assumes that 1,500–1,800 hours are used by
student per year. However, the Bologna Process does not
standardize semesters.
Effects by state Contrary to popular
belief, the Bologna Process was not based on a European
Union initiative. It constitutes an intergovernmental
agreement, between both EU and non-EU countries. Therefore,
it does not have the status of EU legislation. Also, as the
Bologna Declaration is not a treaty or convention, there are
no legal obligations for the signatory states. The extent of
participation and cooperation is completely voluntary. Although the Bologna
Declaration was created outside and without the EU
institutions, the European Commission plays an increasingly
important role in the implementation of the Process. The
Commission has supported several European projects (the
Tuning project, the TEEP project) connected to quality
assurance etc. Most countries do not currently fit the
framework – instead they have their own time-honored
systems. The system will have an undergraduate and
postgraduate division, with the bachelor degree in the
former and the master and doctoral in the latter. In mainland Europe
five year first degrees are common. This situation is
changing rapidly as the Bologna Process is implemented. Depending on the
country and the development of its higher education system,
some introduced ECTS, discussed their degree structures and
qualifications, financing and management of higher
education, mobility, etc. At the institutional level, the
reform involves higher education institutions, their
faculties or departments, student and staff representatives
and many other participants. The priorities varied from
country to country and from institution to institution.
Bologna declaration The Bologna
declaration (Joint declaration of the European
Ministers of Education convened in Bologna on the 19th of
June 1999) is the main guiding document of the Bologna
process. It was adopted by ministers of education of 29
European countries at their meeting in Bologna in 1999. It proposed a
European Higher Education Area in which students and
graduates could move freely between countries, using prior
qualifications in one country as acceptable entry
requirements for further study in another. The principal aims
agreed were:
The Bergen meeting
subsequently refined the second point, and produced a
three-cycle framework of qualifications, which in the UK
terminology (adopted, at least partially, by many European
countries) would be Bachelor for a first degree of three
years, Master for subsequent study, and Doctor for a degree
which has "made a contribution through original research
that extends the frontier of knowledge by developing a
substantial body of work". The Bologna
declaration has later been followed up a series of meetings
between EU ministers. Each meeting has produced a communiqué
based on their deliberations. To date these include the
Prague communiqué (2001), the Berlin communiqué (2003), the
Bergen communiqué (2005), the London communiqué (2007),
the Leuven & Louvain-la-Neuve communiqué
(2009). The Bologna
Ministerial Anniversary Conference 2010 in Budapest and
Vienna was held in March 2010. It issued the Budapest-Vienna
Declaration. The communiqués
indicate that progress is being made towards the Bologna
Declaration's aim of a European Higher Education Area,
however such an area is not universally accepted as being a
desirable outcome. According to the
Budapest-Vienna declaration, the next Ministerial Meeting
will be hosted by Romania in Bucharest on 26–27 April 2012.
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