 European Higher Education Area on the continent. In 1999 the group of countries signing the Bologna Declaration had already further increased from the four that signed the Sorbonne Declaration to 29 countries, and at the first follow up meeting in 2001 in Prague the group increased to 31 countries. While students had to invite themselves to the Bologna conference, they were included in Prague and ESU has been actively and constructively participating in the follow-up to this process and has adopted a large number of policies on various aspects of the Bologna objectives. To achieve the goal of a European Higher Education Area, the Bologna declarations states that the following means should be used:
- Promotion of the necessary European dimensions in higher education, particularly with regards to curricular development, inter-institutional co-operation, mobility schemes and integrated programmes of study, training and research.
- Easily readable and comparable degrees, also through the implementation of the Diploma Supplement;
- Adoption of a system essentially based on two main cycles: undergraduate and graduate levels in all countries;
- Establishment of a system of credits – such as in the ECTS system – as a proper means of promoting the most widespread student mobility;
- A European dimension in quality assurance (by developing comparable criteria and methodologies); and
- Improvement of the free movement of students and teachers through structural reforms (basically, by taking away the remaining obstacles)
In Prague in 2001 the ministers added three keys: - Higher education institutions and students - such as student involvment and participation in decision making bodies in the HE institutions;
- Promoting the attractivness of the European Higher Education Area, for example through exchange programmes such as Erasmus Mundus.
ESU's opinions on the matter
ESIB generally welcomes the increasing co-operation in Higher Education in Europe and supports the idea of establishing a European Higher Education Area. When it comes to the general rationale behind the process, ESU would like to stress that we see co-operation in Europe and beyond, based on core academic values as the main driving factors of the creation of the EHEA and its relation to other regions of the world. The strong focus on the competitiveness of Europe in the world is a double-edged sword. It can on the one hand lead to an increase in quality and transparency, can on the other hand further the privatisation agenda and brain drain, which are trends which ESIB clearly and heavily opposes. Therefore, the inclusion of attractiveness in the Prague communiqué and the shift towards this more co-operative approach is very much welcomed by ESU.
ESU would also like to stress that a clear pursuit of the objectives of the Bologna process is essential for reaching its aims and that the Bologna process must not be abused to carry out other reforms which are only on the national agenda in the name of the Bologna process. A number of countries seem to be abusing the Bologna Process for these kinds of reforms and ESU strongly condemns these attempts of governments to hijack the process. Such hijacking jeopardises the creation of the European Higher Education Area, because stakeholders will oppose the process and the implementation will become increasingly difficult.
The strong focus on economic goals in the Bologna process has been counterbalanced by the inclusion of the social dimension and the reaffirming of HE as a public good in the Prague communiqué. However, more work will need to be done to ensure that these objectives do not remain empty formulas but are met to ensure social inclusion and equity in the EHEA.
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