Bologna process: the european higher education area

АКАДЕМИЯ УПРАВЛЕНИЯ ПРИ ПРЕЗИДЕНТЕ РЕСПУБЛИКИ БЕЛАРУСЬ

ИНСТИТУТ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЙ СЛУЖБЫ

Факультет подготовки и переподготовки

Специальность1-26 01-74 «Государственное управление социальной сферой»

КУРСОВАЯ РАБОТА

Минск 2014

INTRODUTION

The Bologna process has brought about fundamental and dramatic change in higher education structures across the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The Bologna reforms which are analised in 1st chapter have been implemented at a time of unprecedented and rapid expansion in higher education systems. Access to higher education, mobility and funding have been consistent priorities throughout the last decade. The growth of external quality assurance in higher education has been one of the most notable features of the Bologna decade. European cooperation in quality assurance is exemplified by agreement on European Standards and Guidelines and the creation of a European Quality Assurance Register. In the majority of EHEA countries, quality assurance is concerned with granting permission to higher education institutions or programmes to operate on the basis of threshold quality standards.

The term «lifelong learning» is still understood in many different ways across the European Higher Education Area. The 2nd chapter describe that lifelong learning has become a recognised mission of higher education institutions in nearly all countries during the Bologna decade, but nevertheless it remains a peripheral concern in many countries. Information on the funding of lifelong learning is difficult to obtain, partly as a result of lack of conceptual clarity and partly because diverse funding sources are involved. Where information on public funding is available, investment in lifelong learning appears to be relatively low. Approximately half of the Bologna countries have taken measures to stimulate cooperation between higher education institutions and business/industry in the field of lifelong learning.

Despite its importance in the European Higher Education Area, student mobility is rarely a topic that is addressed comprehensively at national level, and information on the reality of student mobility is rarely complete. European policy and programme developments have been an extremely important catalyst for national action on student mobility. While most countries have some financial measures in place to support student mobility, the economic disparity between countries in the European Higher Education Area creates major problems for the less wealthy countries and citizens. The work stated that relatively few countries have set targets for mobility as a part of their higher education development strategy.

Initial national responses to the economic crisis have taken radically different paths – from increased investment in higher education through stimulus packages, to severe cuts in expenditure. The likely impact of these different policy approaches on the European Higher Education Area is at this stage difficult to discern. Economic crisis has also had an impact on enrolment rates, staffing and infrastructure issues, and the continued development of lifelong learning. The work defined the nature of this impact has not been uniform across countries. Through their responses to the crisis, governments have in general demonstrated that they are aware of the social importance of higher education and have neither reduced student support nor scaled back enrolment in the higher education system. Understanding of the impact of economic changes on higher education requires more systematic monitoring.

The analyses conducted by the author showed the Europe 2020 target of increasing the number of young people with higher education qualifications and the 2012 and 2013 CSRs to ten countries on participation of disadvantaged groups, completion rates, quality improvement and relevance to the labour market have been translated into a number of large-scale initiatives. Most countries report that they aim to widen participation in higher education by providing support to disadvantaged students, improving access routes to higher education and reforming their systems of student support. There is less attention on measures to improve completion rates, with less than half of all Member States reporting such measures as strengthening career guidance or providing financial incentives for timely completion of studies.

CHAPTER 1

BOLOGNA STRUCTURES AND TOOLS 

1.1 Overview of the Bologna process

The Bologna process is the product of a series of meetings of Ministers responsible for higher education at which policy decisions have been taken with the goal to establish a European Higher Education Area by 2010. The process also includes the European Commission as a full member. The Council of Europe and UNESCO-CEPES, along with a range of stakeholder organisations are also involved as consultative members. There is thus full and active partnership with higher education institutions, represented by the European University Association (EUA) and the European Association of Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE), students represented by the European Students» Union (ESU), academics represented by Education International (EI) as well as the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and Business Europe representing employer organisations.

Since 1998, six ministerial conferences devoted to mapping out the Bologna process have been held in different European cities, namely Paris (at the Sorbonne University), Bologna, Prague, Berlin, Bergen, London and Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve. The basic precepts of the Bologna process date back to the Sorbonne Joint Declaration on Harmonisation of the Architecture of the European Higher Education System, signed on 25 May 1998 by the education ministers of four countries: France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

The Bologna Declaration on the European Higher Education Area, largely inspired by the Sorbonne Declaration, was signed in June 1999 by ministers responsible for higher education in 29 European countries. This Declaration became the primary document used by the signatory countries to establish the general framework for the modernisation and reform of European higher education. The process of reform came to be called the Bologna process. «In 1999, the signatory countries included the then 15 EU Member States, three EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and 11 EU candidate countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia)» [2, p. 10].The Bologna Declaration also formulates the objective of increasing the international competitiveness of the European system of higher education and stresses the need to ensure that this system attracts significant attention from around the world.

The ministers responsible for higher education in the countries signatory to the Bologna Declaration agreed that «there is a need to introduce a system that is more uniformly structured and «readable» in order to consolidate the European Higher Education Area by 2010» [3, p. 15]. At their last conference in May 2005, the ministers noted with satisfaction that higher education provision organised in three cycles (bachelor/-master/doctorate) had already been established on a broad scale.

1.2 Expanding higher education systems and evolving policy priorities

Since the beginning of the Bologna process, higher education systems in the European Higher Education Area have grown significantly. Although the trend towards mass higher education began before the launch of the Bologna process, the speed of transition has certainly accelerated during the last decade. «The student populations in Armenia, Lithuania, Montenegro and Romania have practically doubled in size. In another 20 systems, student participation has increased by more than 20 percent. Only in Spain the number of students has decreased» [2, p. 15]. Overall, this picture across the European Higher Education Area fits well with acknowledged global massification trends in higher education, and indeed the rapid speed of European change in higher education demography is being out-paced by other world regions.

As the size of the student population has grown, the number of higher education institutions also has grown at least in most countries. «Indeed in Armenia, the Czech Republic, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Italy, Malta, Montenegro and Slovenia, the number of higher education institutions has expanded by more than 100 %» [2, p. 16]. A large part of this growth has been in vocational and professional higher education programmes, and the sector has also seen growth in private, government-recognised higher education institutions. In Italy, although 20 universities have been established in the past 10 years, the dramatic increase in institutions can mostly be explained by the recognition of academies of music and fine arts (Afam system) as higher education institutions.

However, trends regarding higher education institutions are not universal. While some higher education systems have seen significant increases in numbers of institutions, 13 have reported reductions in their number, usually as a result of another trend – the merging of higher education institutions to create greater critical mass. Over the same period, changes in policy priorities reflect developments in the emphasis laid on different action lines in the ministerial communiqués. In 1999, just after the Bologna Declaration, implementing Bologna degree structures or acceding to the Bologna process itself were among the main policy goals for thirteen countries.

This Bologna priority was, however, much less prominent in 2008/09 (although still relevant for five countries), when the focus had shifted to other Bologna issues, particularly quality assurance and the development of National Qualification Frameworks. Questions of mobility, access, participation and funding remain consistently important over time when looking at all Bologna countries. The general shift in national higher education policy priorities also indicates that countries have already begun to look forward to giving reality to the European Higher Education Area in the next decade.

1.3 The Bologna tools: ECTS, Diploma Supplement and National Qualification Frameworks

The Bologna process has led to greater convergence in the architecture of national higher education systems on the structural level. The overall broadness of the guidelines expressed in communiqués and related texts, however, allows countries and institutions to maintain specific characteristics for most programmes. In order to help the development of comparable and understandable degrees and systems, a number of pre-existing «tools» were introduced in the Bologna process. They are to foster transparency and mutual recognition. The aim is to make education systems and programmes more transparent and render them understandable for all.

Two long established elements of the «Bologna toolkit» are the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) and the Diploma Supplement (DS). ECTS was developed at the end of the 1980s to facilitate credit transfer in the Erasmus programme and thus to foster student mobility. The decision to establish a European Higher Education Area came a decade later and, since then, ECTS has become a core element in its implementation. In the Berlin Communiqué (2003), ministers stressed that ECTS should not only be used for credit transfer, but also for credit accumulation, and in Bergen in 2005, they agreed on indicative credit ranges for the first two cycles. They were the last steps to establish ECTS as a cornerstone in the implementation of the Bologna reforms. In 2007 and 2009, the ministers noted that «there has been progress in the implementation to increase transparency and recognition» [2, p. 20].

In 1999/2000, 31 countries reported they did not use ECTS for either credit accumulation or transfer. Even for transfer (which was at that time the only recognised function of the ECTS), only Belgium (Flemish Community), Iceland, Latvia, Spain and Sweden reported a significant use by higher education institutions. This situation has now changed radically. «Today, 24 countries report using ECTS as a credit accumulation and transfer tool in more than 75 % of higher education institutions, while 29 report this for programmes» [2, p. 21]. In the majority of countries/regions, ECTS has been introduced through national legislation – although in many systems this is only the first step towards implementation in reality. However, at this level, ECTS can be shown to be a strong feature of education systems. It is also gradually replacing more and more national credit systems, even those that are fully compatible with ECTS (Estonia and Latvia).

The Diploma Supplement, the second important Bologna «tool», was developed by the European Commission, the Council of Europe and UNESCO-CEPES in the 1990s. It is a standardised template containing a description of the nature, level, context, content and status of the studies completed by the individual noted on the original diploma. The goal of the Diploma Supplement is «to increase transparency of education acquired for the purposes of securing employment and facilitating academic recognition for further studies (Berlin Communiqué, 2003)» [2, p. 21]. The intention is thus to improve understanding of the knowledge, skills and competences acquired by the learner. The Diploma Supplement should be attached to the original national diploma, together with a description of the national higher education system within which the diploma was awarded.

1.4 Quality Assurance

Еnsuring and improving quality of higher education and establishing quality assurance systems remains a high priority for many countries. However, measures taken to strengthen quality within institutions (i.e. internal quality assurance) are beyond the scope of the national level sources. While it is a moot question whether quality in higher education has improved during the past Bologna decade, there is no doubt whatsoever that quality assurance has seen dramatic developments. In higher education, quality assurance can be understood as policies, procedures and practices that are designed to achieve, maintain or enhance quality as it is understood in a specific context. During the Bologna period, quality assurance in higher education has been clearly linked to establishing stakeholder confidence. Indeed, the following principles outlined in the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) adopted in May 2005 stress stakeholder interest, institutional autonomy and minimum burden on higher education institutions. «Thus Quality Assurance should focus on:

• the interests of students as well as employers and the society more generally in good quality higher education;
• the central importance of institutional autonomy, tempered by a recognition that this brings with it heavy responsibilities;
• the need for external quality assurance to be fit for its purpose and to place only an appropriate and necessary burden on institutions for the achievement of its objectives» [2, p. 24].

Although nearly all Bologna countries have a system of external quality assurance in place, usually with one or more independent agencies charged with prime responsibility, a quick glance through the dates of establishment of these bodies shows that this is a recent and fast-developing phenomenon. Indeed, only a handful of countries had already established clear external quality assurance systems prior to the Bologna process. During the Bologna decade, 22 countries have established national agencies for quality assurance, with half of these being set up since 2005. In a few countries, such as Denmark and France, new agencies have replaced.

Few countries have stayed outside this quality assurance revolution. Countries with a small higher education sector such as Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Malta have not established agencies. However, Liechtenstein has developed strong cooperation with Switzerland to ensure that external quality assurance is fully implemented. Luxembourg has also developed a progressive approach of improvement-oriented evaluation that is both inclusive of stakeholders and extremely international.

Developments at national level have also been accompanied by major changes at European level. The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) was established in 2004 after four years as a more informal network. It works to promote European co-operation in the field of quality assurance. The launch of the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) in March 2008 represents the culmination of efforts to promote European cooperation in quality assurance through the Bologna process. EQAR aims at enhancing trust and confidence in European higher education by listing quality assurance agencies that operate in Europe and have proven their credibility and reliability in a review against the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG). After less than two years of existence, EQAR includes 17 quality assurance agencies based in ten European countries. EQAR is also notable for its governance structures, as it is governed and supported by an international non-profit association that comprises all major European higher education stakeholders and European governments. This inclusive approach to governance is a strong symbol of the close partnership that has developed through the Bologna process and offers a model for other world regions.

The European debate on quality assurance during the last decade has emphasised the importance of establishing agencies that are able to perform their work in an independent manner. In most cases, this has led to the development of agencies that are legally and operationally independent from governments as well as from higher education institutions. Only six countries – Azerbaijan, Iceland, Moldova, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine – have maintained a system of central management for quality by ministries. Meanwhile, the situation for two countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italy – is currently in a process of transition. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, an agency was established in law in 2006 but is not yet operational. In Italy, following legislation in 2008, considerable action has been undertaken to ensure that a new improvement-oriented quality assurance agency should soon be fully functioning. Notwithstanding these exceptions, it is clear that the European Higher Education Area is now largely full of national external quality assurance systems with independent agencies.

CHAPTER 2

LIFELONG LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

2.1 Lifelong learning as a recognised mission of institutions

Lifelong learning has recently re-emerged at the forefront of the Bologna process agenda. In 2009, the ministers emphasised that widening participation shall also be achieved through lifelong learning as an integral part of our education systems. This section looks at the efforts made by governments and institutions to integrate lifelong learning into the mission of higher education providers, to increase the offer of services and to promote participation in lifelong learning through higher education. «Countries have been asked to report on the key aspects of national responsibility for lifelong learning as outlined in the European University Association’s Charter for Lifelong Learning» [2, p.35]. Actions that are considered include creating favourable legislative and regulatory frameworks, provision of financial and other incentives to higher education institutions, as well as measures to encourage participation and to stimulate cooperation with the private sector.

The growing preoccupation of governments and stakeholders with the lifelong learning perspective has led to concrete developments in most Bologna countries. Where lifelong learning is a mission of some institutions, this is often related to questions of institutional autonomy, with some institutions choosing to focus on the mission of lifelong learning and others to avoid it. Consequently, the extent to which programmes and courses are oriented to potential lifelong learners can vary considerably, but the mission is acknowledged almost everywhere. Furthermore, in 24 countries, at least some higher education institutions are legally required to offer lifelong learning services. The earliest such legal act was adopted in France in 1968 – with further modernising legislation in 2002 creating the current comprehensive system of Recognition of Prior Learning. By 1990, only two other countries – Malta (1988) and Italy (1990) – had adopted similar legislation to encourage the development of lifelong learning in higher education. However, a significant number of countries have adopted legislation related to the higher education responsibility for lifelong learning during the current decade. These laws either generically define lifelong learning as a mission for higher education institutions or compel institutions to offer special access routes, provide certain types of programmes or engage in activities aimed at the general and working population.

Data on funding of lifelong learning activities remains scattered and is often unavailable at national level. In most cases, public budgets for higher education do not contain specifically earmarked funding for lifelong learning. As institutions have become more autonomous they now more often receive lump sum funding and it is up to them to decide on the allocation of funds in line with the legal requirements in place. As a consequence, data on overall spending on lifelong learning is available in only nine countries: Andora, Armenia, Belgium (French Community), Croatia, Cyprus, France, Moldova, Romania and Serbia. They report that between 0.1 and 2.5 percent of their respective total higher education budgets are dedicated for specific lifelong learning activities. In the United Kingdom (Scotland), this percentage is higher – between 2.6 and 5 percent. Another reason for the lack of overall data is the great diversity of funding sources for lifelong learning activities. Lifelong learning activities are financed through municipal, regional or national public funds as well as private sources. These can be contributions from business/industry or from individuals through tuition and variously named fees. The Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain are among countries where higher education institutions are free to set fees for lifelong learning programmes. Denmark emphasises that employers often pay for employee participation in lifelong learning programmes offered by higher education institutions, thus confirming the relevance of the programme offer in the sector. Finally, as in the Netherlands, expenses incurred through participation in lifelong learning programmes may be tax deductible or otherwise indirectly supported by the state.

From the point of view of potential lifelong learning students, barriers to lifelong learning may exist through age restrictions for student support measures and social benefits. This issue is being specifically addressed in the Czech Republic, where the restriction of social benefits to students under the age of 26 is set to be removed. From a policy perspective, however, the need for comprehensive and reliable data on the amounts and types of spending on lifelong learning cannot be overemphasised. Such information would permit improving the monitoring of lifelong learning activities. Knowledge about the way and the extent that lifelong learning is implemented in higher education institutions would provide a more coherent picture about the degree to which the goal set by the ministers has been achieved and would help further policy development. Overall, it could be said that the progress that has been made in integrating lifelong learning as an aspect of the missions of institutions has not yet led everywhere to positioning it at the core of higher education learning.

2.2 Student mobility

Student mobility has been an over-arching goal of the Bologna process since its inception, and the drive to promote mobility has been consistent throughout the last decade. Yet despite both the high profile of mobility issues in the Bologna Ministerial meetings and the sustained growth of European programmes (including Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus) promoting and funding mobility – there has been surprisingly little attempt made to analyse national policies and measures to promote mobility.

For a country to be able to have a clear policy on mobility, it must have a sense of how it would like mobility phenomena to change and, therefore, a vision of the situation that it considers desirable. While this is an obvious statement, it is nevertheless surprisingly rare for a country to express clear objectives related to student mobility, and it is more common to find general expressions of desires for more mobility – whether incoming or outgoing. It may also be mistaken to assume that countries all share the same basic objectives in this field, despite the fact that they may be able to reach common goals at the level of the EHEA. For example, some countries may focus on incoming mobility while putting in place few measures to encourage outgoing mobility (e.g. the United Kingdom (England, Wales and Northern Ireland)). Other countries, such as Belgium (Flemish Community), may be more concerned to stimulate outgoing mobility, and others still may aim to encourage both incoming and outgoing mobility. «The following list gathers together the issues mentioned spontaneously by countries when invited to outline their mobility policy:

• amending immigration legislation to facilitate visa procedures for students/researchers;
• a panoply of financial measures, from scholarships, grants and fee waivers to ensuring the portability of student support;
• information campaigns, directed either at encouraging national students to study abroad or attracting international students to the country;
• bi-lateral or multi-lateral cooperation agreements;
• support to institutions in considering internationalisation in curriculum design;
• focus on fair and simple recognition procedures and on the good use of ECTS;
• strengthening implementation of the Bologna measures;
• support for language learning (both incoming and outgoing students);
• encouraging language learning among staff in higher education;
• provision of programmes in other languages (particularly English);
• supporting higher education institutions in their mobility strategies;
• attention to mobility in quality assurance procedures;
• promotion of joint and double degrees;
• adaptation of information and counselling services for mobile students;
• support for accommodation» [2, p. 41].

Of the measures outlined above, financial measures are by far the most frequently mentioned. However, while this is significant, the widespread existence of financial measures needs to be considered in relation to the enormous socio-economic diversity within and especially between countries in the European Higher Education Area. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank rankings of countries by GDP per capita both include 6 of the EHEA countries in the top 10 world economies, while other EHEA countries rank as low as 114 out of the 166 countries included. This means that, even with the best political will to promote mobility and with some financial measures in place, less wealthy countries are simply unable to bridge the funding gaps that would be required for a substantial number of their citizens to be able to cover costs to study in some of the more wealthy countries. Thus, it is primarily the sources of funding available from host countries in the form of scholarships and grants that currently enable mobility flows in this direction to take place.

It is also interesting to note that very few countries appear to have mounted specific information campaigns to encourage students of the benefits of studying abroad. France and Germany are two major exceptions to this trend. « In Germany, a campaign called «Go Out» has been organised through the Federal Ministry of Education (BMBF) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), putting together information on scholarship and cooperation programmes» [4, p. 16]. Similar initiatives are undertaken regularly in France. In no single country do all the measures outlined above come together in the form of comprehensive mobility policy – at least not in explicit terms. This suggests that the commitment made for the EHEA to develop mobility opportunities extensively and aiming at the goal of 20 % of students benefitting from mobility during her/his studies (however this goal is eventually measured) requires a major push in policy making and implementation of measures if the European Higher Education Area is to meet the aspirations for an open and inclusive space for mobility.

2.3 The Economic crisis and Higher Education

The global economic crisis that began in 2008 adds a further dimension to these challenges. In the last two years, public budgets have come under immense pressure, and the higher education sector is being, and will continue to be, affected by this new economic reality along with all other areas of public responsibility. As the higher education sector can help societies adapt to a new and changing economic situation, there are important political choices for countries to make, particularly with regard to investment. The most prominent impact of the crisis reported by most countries is linked to changes in the higher education budget.

A number of countries have focused attention on the role of higher education in re-skilling citizens for the challenges of a transforming labour market. «Additional study places are being funded to upskill the unemployed in Ireland. Incentives for industry to transfer scientific staff to universities are a policy response in Denmark and the Netherlands. In Finland and the United Kingdom (England, Wales and Northern Ireland), new study places have also been funded in areas thought to be relevant for the future of the national economies. More negative trends in participation are reported in Estonia and Latvia, where lower numbers of fee-paying students and/or increases in the time students take to finish their degree have been noted due to economic constraints» [2, p. 45]. Some countries have experienced reductions in staffing as a result of the economic situation. In Ireland and Latvia, budgetary cuts will reduce the numbers of people employed by higher education institutions. In Estonia, the crisis is perceived as providing an opportunity for higher education institutions to close down only those study programmes that may lack critical mass and also to reduce the workload of some staff in order to improve efficiency. This contrasts with neighbouring Latvia, where severe cuts and consequent measures have been implemented. Indeed, a number of higher education institutions and/or faculties/departments have been or are expected to be closed. The freezing of funds despite increasing student numbers has also resulted in Serbia in the postponement of a foreseen increase in staff.

The crisis, however, is in practically no country explicitly taken as an excuse to reduce student support or to scale back enrolment in the higher education system. Indeed most countries reaffirm their determination to increase participation in higher education. In order to cushion the effects of the economic crisis, some countries are increasing the number of publicly funded places for students or increasing social support for students. This is clearly necessary, as several countries have reported increasing numbers of students that have problems paying fees for higher education, while Ireland reports increased demand for part-time programmes. The French Community of Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and the United Kingdom (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) will fund extra places for students at public or government dependent universities (Cyprus is still in deliberation on this topic) with Ireland and Finland focusing in particular on professional and vocational training. Belgium (French Community), Estonia, Georgia, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom (Scotland) have taken measures to improve the situation of students by extending direct and indirect student support.

2.4 Improving attainment levels and the quality and relevance of higher education

Improving the quality and relevance of higher education is also given a high priority. Two thirds of the countries refer to policy developments in the areas of quality assurance and employability of higher education graduates respectively. In the area of quality assurance, there is a trend towards establishing a single quality assurance and accreditation body that aims to provide more integrated and transparent services, as well as a move from programme to institutional accreditation. In some countries efforts to improve the employability of higher education graduates include, among others, «recent steps to establish or further develop shorter, more practically oriented courses which often focus on economic sectors experiencing skills shortages» [1, p. 7]. Several countries report that they have recently undertaken or are launching large-scale initiatives to both improve attainment levels and increase the quality and relevance of higher education.

The Europe 2020 strategy highlights higher education as a key policy area where reforms can directly contribute to jobs and economic growth. «In this context, one of the 2020 twin targets on education refers to the commitment made by Member States that at least 40 % of young people (aged 30-34) should have completed tertiary or equivalent education by 2020» [1, p. 35]. The European Commission has defined an agenda for the modernisation of Europe’s higher education systems which outlines the main areas for reform. Against this backdrop, among the important challenges discussed within the framework of the European Semester are widening access to tertiary education by facilitating entry and improving the retention of students from disadvantaged groups and increasing efficiency by improving completion rates and reducing the time taken to complete degree courses.

In many countries, reforms to broaden participation and increase tertiary attainment levels are undertaken in parallel with measures to improve the quality and relevance of higher education, or to help institutions achieve or maintain excellence. Several European countries report significant reorganisations of their national systems of accreditation and quality assurance since 2011. An important common objective has been to increase the transparency of information about quality assurance and strengthen efforts to make this information easily available to both students and the general public. Developing comparable criteria and methodologies has been a noticeable recent trend that has also been influenced by the Bologna process.

Effective partnerships between education institutions, research and business can enhance the contribution of higher education to innovation and growth. A number of countries report recent initiatives that focus on better knowledge transfer between companies and higher education and research institutions, and between the public and private sector. Increased attention on the role of education programmes in enhancing the capacity for innovation is also featured. «In Sweden, higher education institutions and their holding companies are receiving special funds to build up «idea banks» of research results. In France, the 2013 Law on Higher Education and Research provides for the simplification of research management and more efficient use of existing investment schemes» [1, p. 42]. Special support will be provided for technological research, with a view to revitalising the innovation capacities of France’s industrial base and contributing to the development of new branches creating employment.

CONCLUSION

The Bologna Declaration became the primary document used by the signatory countries to establish the general framework for the modernisation and reform of European higher education. This Declaration also formulates the objective of increasing the international competitiveness of the European system of higher education and stresses the need to ensure that this system attracts significant attention from around the world. Since the beginning of the Bologna process, higher education systems in the European Higher Education Area have grown significantly. The general shift in national higher education policy priorities also indicates that countries have already begun to look forward to giving reality to the European Higher Education Area in the next decade.

The Bologna process has led to greater convergence in the architecture of national higher education systems on the structural level. In order to help the development of comparable and understandable degrees and systems, a number of pre-existing «tools» were introduced in the Bologna process. They are to foster transparency and mutual recognition. The aim is to make education systems and programmes more transparent and render them understandable for all. The Diploma Supplement, the second important Bologna «tool», was developed by the European Commission, the Council of Europe and UNESCO-CEPES. The goal of the Diploma Supplement is to increase transparency of education acquired for the purposes of securing employment and facilitating academic recognition for further studies. The intention is thus to improve understanding of the knowledge, skills and competences acquired by the learner.

Еnsuring and improving quality of higher education and establishing quality assurance systems remains a high priority for many countries. In higher education, quality assurance can be understood as policies, procedures and practices that are designed to achieve, maintain or enhance quality as it is understood in a specific context. During the Bologna period, quality assurance in higher education has been clearly linked to establishing stakeholder confidence. The European Higher Education Area is now largely full of national external quality assurance systems with independent agencies.

The growing preoccupation of governments and stakeholders with the lifelong learning perspective has led to concrete developments in most Bologna countries. Where lifelong learning is a mission of some institutions, this is often related to questions of institutional autonomy, with some institutions choosing to focus on the mission of lifelong learning and others to avoid it. Student mobility has been an over-arching goal of the Bologna process since its inception, and the drive to promote mobility has been consistent throughout the last decade.

The global economic crisis that began in 2008 adds a further dimension to these challenges. As the higher education sector can help societies adapt to a new and changing economic situation, there are important political choices for countries to make, particularly with regard to investment. The crisis, however, is in practically no country explicitly taken as an excuse to reduce student support or to scale back enrolment in the higher education system. In order to cushion the effects of the economic crisis, some countries are increasing the number of publicly funded places for students or increasing social support for students.

All European countries, regardless of current levels of tertiary attainment and progress towards their respective 2020 national targets, or 2012 and 2013 Country-specific Recommendations (CSRs) in the area of higher education, report that a range of policy measures have been put in place and continue to be developed in order to improve attainment, quality and relevance in European higher education. The policy objective of increasing the number of young people with higher education qualifications has been translated into a number of large-scale initiatives to widen participation in general and in particular among under-represented groups.

SOURCES

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3. Focus on the Structure of Higher Education in Europe – 2006/07: National Trends in the Bologna Process. –Brussels: Eurydice, 2007. – 350 p.
4. Supporting growth and jobs – An agenda for the modernisation of Europe’s higher education systems. – Luxembourg, 2011. – 32 p.