B Explanatory
memorandum by Mr McIntosh, rapporteur
1 Foreword
1. The theme of this report has been informed by a hearing
held in Paris on 10 March 2009 by the Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee
on Culture, Science and Education with the participation of Dr Anne Corbett,
Visiting Fellow at the European Institute of the London School of
Economics and Political Science, Professor Radu Mircea Damian, President
of the National Higher Education Funding Council of Romania and Chairman
of the Steering Committee on Higher Education and Research of the
Council of Europe, Mr Stefan Delplace, Secretary General of the
European Association of Institutions in Higher Education, Mr Germain Dondelinger,
Director for Higher Education in the Ministry of Culture, Higher
Education and Research of Luxembourg and Mr Per Nyborg, former Head
of the Bologna secretariat from 2003-2005. I am grateful to those
speakers and committee members who took part. This explanatory memorandum
has been prepared together with Dr Anne Corbett, to whom I express
my deep appreciation.
2 Introduction
2. The European Higher Education Area, to be launched
in 2010, is envisaged by those constructing it as a space in which
students and academics can move between national systems knowing
that their qualifications will be recognised, that quality measured
by recognised quality assurance practices is guaranteed, and that systems
coexisting in a shared cultural space should be compatible and comparable.
The systems will still be proudly national, but potentially, at
an international level, better understood and more esteemed.
3. The Council of Europe has an important place in the construction
of this new area. As an organisation set up to promote human rights,
democracy and the rule of law, it has taken on education-related responsibilities,
and used education as an instrument for promoting respect for Europe’s
rich and diverse cultural and democratic identity. Its understanding
of higher education in Europe, and the practical use to which it
puts this awareness, has long reflected a number of principles,
which were highlighted in an Assembly report of 2006 for which the
rapporteur
was
Mr Josef Jařab
Note. These are :
- the fundamental right to education as part of human rights;
- the respect for academic freedom and the autonomy of institutions
of higher educationNote;
- the recognition of national or regional legislators as
determining education policies and standardsNote;
- the mutual recognition of study periods and qualifications
based on coordinated quality standards.
4. The report, which follows in support of the Motion in Assembly
Doc. 11752, looks at the role the Council of Europe has played as
a pioneer in this area of higher education co-operation, the role
it is playing now within the Bologna Process, and whether its contribution
might be more fully exploited with the establishment of a European
Higher Education Area (EHEA).
5. Reflecting the particular interests of the Assembly in the
new EHEA, this report is guided by three questions: What must change
in policy terms with the transition to the EHEA? Does the Council
of Europe have a further role to play in underpinning the democratic
dimension of the EHEA? Can the Council of Europe contribute to the
support structures of the EHEA?
3 Background
3.1 Sixty years of
European co-operation in higher education
6. There is a long history of European co-operation
in higher education, starting in the early 1950s. Created in 1949,
the Council of Europe’s own interest in education was made explicit
in 1952 with Article 2 of the first Protocol to the European Convention
on Human Rights. This defined a fundamental right to education.
In 1953, the Council of Europe’s member states created the European
Convention on the Equivalence of Diplomas Leading to Admission to
Universities. In 1954, the European Cultural Convention defined
the objective of “foster[ing] among the nationals of all members,
and of such other European states as may accede thereto, the study
of the languages, history and civilisation of the others and of
the civilisation which is common to them all.”
7. Higher education co-operation acquired momentum in the mid
1950s with a European Convention on the Equivalence of Periods of
University Study of 1956. In 1959, the European Convention on the
Academic Recognition of University Qualifications provided the first
framework of mutual recognition of higher education in Europe. This
removed an important barrier to study in another country, and gave
students the opportunity to widen their personal horizons beyond
national frontiers and to participate in practical terms in European
co-operation. The European Agreement on Continued Payment of Scholarships
to Students Studying Abroad of 1969 made it realistic for many more
students to study abroad.
8. By then the Standing Conference of European Ministers of Education
had been set up. Established in 1959, it meets regularly to strengthen
European co-operation in this field through discussion of common approaches
toeducation policy. The Standing
Conference is served by a secretariat provided by the Council of Europe.
9. In education as elsewhere, the work of the Council of Europe
is largely determined by its member states in the relevant committees.
Nationally appointed representatives of the academic community contribute alongside
national officials on the Steering Committee on Higher Education
and Research (CDESR). Student associations and other NGOs may have
official participatory status with the Council of Europe through
its Conference of International NGOs as well as direct observer
status on the CDESR, as is the case with e.g. the European University
Association, the European Association of Institutions in Higher
Education (EURASHE), the European Students’ Union. A distinctive
feature of the Council of Europe is that it has a Parliamentary Assembly,
i.e., a body containing representatives of the full spectrum of
political opinion, as well as governments. Not only can this Assembly
contribute to policy. It is described on the Council’s own website
as ‘the deliberative body and the driving force of the Council of
Europe”.
10. A further distinction of the Council of Europe within the
field of international organisations with interest in European education
is that it should provide flexible and inclusive structures. In
the field of education and culture non-European states have been
able to accede to Council of Europe conventions, such as the Lisbon Recognition
Convention, under certain conditions.
11. Another international organisation to have played an important
role in the development of European higher education co-operation
is UNESCO. It also has been active in the domain of recognition
and transparency. Back in 1976 it stimulated co-operation with countries
in the Mediterranean Basin through its International Convention
on the Recognition of Studies, Diplomas and Degrees in Higher Education
in the Arab and European States bordering on the Mediterranean.
This was followed in 1979 by the UNESCO Convention on the Recognition
of Studies, Diplomas and Degrees concerning Higher Education in
the States belonging to the Europe Region.
12. By the late 1970s the OECD and the European Union (then EEC)
were also players. OECD became involved as a spill-over from its
core economic interests, setting up analyses of national systems
and articulating principles for modernisation. The European Economic
Community, proceeding carefully on a Treaty which did not give Community
institutions specific competence for education, started to give experimental
support for cross-border co-operation between individual universities,
and to provide small grants to encourage the mobility of students;
an initiative which was to culminate in the Erasmus programme, agreed in
1987. However the bulk of education-related European Community financial
support and educational effort has always gone into vocational training-related
education, and to industrial research.
13. In 1989, with the fall of the Iron Curtain, much greater opportunities
for continent-wide European higher co-operation opened up for the
first time for 50 years. The European Union initiated such programmes
as Tempus. The Council of Europe again was a central player. Drawing
on its long experience in devising ways to recognise academic work,
and its potentially pan-European membership, it created in 1990
the European Convention on the General Equivalence of Periods of
University Study. This initiative was to lead in 1997, by which
time the Council of Europe had 40 members and the European Union
15, to the much more comprehensive convention elaborated jointly
by the Council of Europe and UNESCO. This was the Convention on
the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education in
the European Region, generally known as the Lisbon Recognition Convention.
The convention functions through a joint Council of Europe-UNESCO committee
which has secretariat services provided by the Secretary General
of the Council of Europe and the Director General of UNESCO.
Note
3.2 The Bologna Process:
change as well as continuities
14. In 1998, a political initiative taken by the education
ministers of four of the largest European Union states marked a
new turning point in European higher education co-operation. Meeting
at the Sorbonne University in Paris, they adopted a Joint Declaration
which built on the long European tradition of educational co-operation, but
added the significant and unprecedented wish to harmonise the ‘architecture’
or structures of the national higher education systems. They invited
others to join them in jointly establishing a common European Higher Education
Area (EHEA), and generally boosting the international standing of
European universities.
15. The Bologna Declaration followed in 1999. Inspired by, but
in some ways modifying, the Sorbonne Declaration, it set out six
principles on which co-operation should be based to create an EHEA:
- adoption of a system of easily
readable and comparable degrees;
- adoption of a system essentially based on two cycles;
- establishment of a system of credits;
- promotion of mobility;
- promotion of European co-operation in quality assurance;
- promotion of the European dimension in higher education;
16. The Declaration was signed by ministers responsible for higher
education in 29 European countries. It became a basic document for
each signatory country undertaking national reform. But such reform
within a common framework was quickly understood by participants
to be an on-going process. The Bologna Process, as it came to be
called, has continued to generate voluntary agreement to common
policy commitments (a further four principles) and framework instruments
for implementation. At a ministerial meeting in Prague (2001) ministers
agreed that higher education should be recognised as a public responsibility
and agreed to extend their commitments to the promotion of:
- lifelong learning;
- participation of higher education institutions and students;
- the attractiveness of the European Higher Education Area.
17. At a ministerial meeting in Berlin (2003) ministers repeated
their commitment to the concept of public responsibility and extended
their commitments to:
- doctoral
studies and the synergy between the EHEA and ERA (Educational Research
Area);
- the social dimension of higher education (access etc)
to be seen as an overarching action line.
18. Ministers also began to think of implementation priorities.
This 2003 meeting opened up a period of development, which is still
on-going, to reorganise national structures on the basis of the
three-cycles, to develop and adopt European standards and guidelines
for quality assurance, and later a European register for quality
assurance agencies; to develop an overarching European Higher Education
Area framework for qualifications, based on learning outcomes and
workload, and then ask national governments to develop and introduce
national qualifications frameworks. Ministers also committed to
adopting a universal Diploma Supplement and to using the European
Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) to increase transparency
and recognition.
19. Ministers were also committed to a form of benchmarking monitoring
and evaluation known as “Stocktaking”. Starting in 2003, the stocktaking
exercises have become more constraining as time has gone on, confirming
their similarity to the European Union’s tool of the Open Method
of Coordination. An external evaluation of the systems will be unveiled
in 2010 at the Bologna Tenth Anniversary Conference.
20. By 2007, the 29 original government signatories had been joined
by 17 others, bringing the total to 46. Nineteen of the signatories
are outside the European Union. Their adherence was facilitated
by the 2003 ministerial decision that the Process should be open
to all those states which satisfy two requirements. They need to
be party to the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe
and to commit to the Bologna Declaration and subsequent ministerial
communiqués in writing. Ministers also committed to have incorporated,
or to be incorporating, the Lisbon Recognition Convention.
Note
21. The Bologna Process is steered through ministerial conferences
and managed by the Bologna Follow-up Group (BFUG). Since 1999 ministerial
conferences have taken place every two years. They have been held in
Prague (2001), Berlin (2003), Bergen (2005), London (2007) and,
from 28 to 29 April 2009, Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve. These ministerial
conferences are prepared and managed by the Bologna Follow-up Group consisting
of ministerial representatives, the European Commission DG Education
and Culture, and a number of stakeholders, including the Council
of Europe and UNESCO, the European University Association, the European
Students Union and other important interest groups
Note. The BFUG manages a work programme
of seminars, meetings and working groups which put into effect ministerial
wishes, and which make suggestions as to how the process can be
carried forward towards the achievement of an EHEA by 2020. Its
chairmanship shadows the European Union Presidency ‘trio’ process
of six-month periods of office working with the preceding and subsequent
presidencies.
22. The Bologna Process has no resources of its own. Since the
earliest days the European Commission has provided funding for development
and data collection. Since 2003, those states which host a ministerial conference
also provide secretariat services for the two-year duration of the
cycle leading up to the conference.
3.3 The Council of
Europe’s involvement in the Bologna Process
23. The work of the Council of Europe is largely determined
by its member states in the relevant committees. But the Council
of Europe structure also provides opportunities for Ministers and
the Parliamentary Assembly to contribute to policy. In the field
of higher education, representatives of the academic community can
do so through the Steering Committee on Higher Education and Research
(CDESR), where they sit alongside government officials. Student
associations and other NGOs may have official participatory status
with the Council of Europe through its Conference of International
NGOs. As noted above, individual NGOs with relevant activities may
also be granted direct observer status with the CDESR.
24. Its encouragement to non-European states to ratify Council
of Europe conventions has led several ‘non-Bologna’ countries to
ratify the Lisbon Recognition Convention. These are: Australia,
Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and New Zealand. It has been signed
by Canada and the USA.
25. The Council of Europe has in the past run many education projects
of its own. But it entered the Bologna Process as part of a team,
when invited in 2001 as a stakeholder in European higher education
to nominate representatives for the follow up process. It has since
been represented by an official and by an academic, the current
chair of the CDESR.
26. Within the Bologna Process, and over the decade, it can be
fairly said the Council of Europe has played both a traditional
and a new role. It has been instrumental in standard setting, a
role which arises out of its historical concern with transparency
and democratic practice, as exemplified in the two Conventions which underpin
the Bologna Process.
27. In addition, its officials have played an important role in
Bologna policy development through active participation in the BFUG
and Board, and in Bologna working groups. An example is the work
associated with the issue of public responsibility for higher education
which became a political issue within the Bologna Process in 2001.The
Council of Europe through the CDESR has worked intensively on the
issue since then, producing a Recommendation on public responsibility
for higher education and Research, adopted by the Committee of Ministers
Note. It is about
to launch work on the responsibility of public authorities for ensuring
institutional autonomy, to parallel to the 1988 universities’ Magna
Charta developed by a group of university rectors.
28. A third contribution of the Council of Europe arises out of
its understanding of how fundamentally the Bologna Process has changed
as it has expanded geographically. Examples of work with countries
that acceded to the Bologna Process in 2003 and 2005, many of them
outside the European Union (but familiar as members of the Council
of Europe) are assistance and advice in reforming systems, legislation
and practice in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Georgia, Serbia, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and
Ukraine.
29. The Council of Europe has also taken on responsibility for
coordinating shared experience on the difficult issue of developing
national qualifications frameworks and ensuring that they are compatible
with the agreed overarching Bologna European framework. We should
note that the Council of Europe, by chairing the Coordination Group
on qualifications frameworks, is the only organisation among the
stakeholders to chair such a group.
30. In summary, the Council of Europe’s contributions to the Bologna
Process since the previous ministerial meeting in 2007 have focused
on:
- recognition policy, including
the role of the Lisbon Recognition Convention;
- specific policy areas of relevance to the Bologna Process
as well as to the basic values of the Council of Europe, notably
the public responsibility for higher education and research, the
responsibility of higher education for democratic culture, higher
education governance and quality assurance;
- bilateral and regional activities assisting newer member
states with the implementation of “Bologna inspired” policies at
national level;
- coordinating the sharing of experience on the development
of national qualifications frameworks.
31. In addition to this Council of Europe staff contribution,
bodies which the Council of Europe hosts, notably the CDESR, the
Lisbon Recognition Convention Committee and the ENIC Network
Note make
important contributions to the Bologna Process.
4 Current policy:
the Bologna Process after the Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve ministerial
meeting
32. The Ministers responsible for higher education in
the 46 countries which participate in the Bologna Process met at
Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve on 28-29 April 2009 with the double
objective of taking stock of the achievements of the Bologna Process
and establishing the priorities for the EHEA over the next decade. In
entitling their communiqué “The Bologna Process 2020: the European
Higher Education Area in the New Decade” they acknowledge that the
initial Bologna target of 2010 is unrealistic with respect to the
full implementation of some policy goals and that another decade
is needed for the “full and proper implementation of [their] objectives”.
Note
33. Their stocktaking of the decade nevertheless gives them much
cause for satisfaction. They believe they have developed a European
Higher Education Area “firmly rooted in Europe’s intellectual, scientific
and cultural heritage and ambitions”; and that it is characterised
by permanent co-operation between governments, higher education
institutions, students, staff, employers and other stakeholders.
34. More specifically ministers note that the greater compatibility
and comparability of the systems of higher education stimulated
by the Bologna Process is making it easier for learners to be mobile
and for institutions to attract students and scholars from other
continents. Higher education is being modernized by the three-cycle structure,
the adoption of the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality
Assurance, the creation of the European Register for Quality Assurance
Agencies and the on-going establishment of National Qualifications Frameworks
linked to the overarching EHEA framework, based on learning outcomes
and workload. The adoption of the Diploma Supplement and the European
Credit Transfer and Accumulation System further increase transparency
and recognition.
Note
35. Looking to the future, ministers set one new target: that
by 2020, 20 % of students should have study experience abroad, though
this was contested as unrealistic by some ministers at the Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve
conference itself. More profoundly they made the case for diversity
of institutions and objectives within a conception of higher education
which assumes content to be based on “state-of-the-art research
and development”,
Note and that Institutions which reflect
the different missions of higher education “ranging from teaching
and research to community service and engagement in social cohesion
and cultural development” can all be excellent. Ministerial key
words for issues which require new developments efforts during the
coming decade include access, lifelong learning, learning outcomes,
employability, international openness and mobility. The financial
crisis lead ministers to agree that higher education institutions
should now be seeking new and diversified funding sources and methods.
But they also argued for mixed funding
sui
generis: as universities and colleges enjoy greater autonomy,
they should have the flexibility which private funding can bring
to respond to growing expectations of what they can deliver to society,
as well as to students.
Note
36. Organisationally, ministers do not differentiate between the
Bologna decade and the EHEA. They endorse present structures as
“fit for purpose”: that is, the structure of ministerial meetings,
and the follow-up group consisting of governments working with stakeholders
- the academic community’s representative organisations and others
- and with the European organisations (i.e. the European Commission,
the Council of Europe and UNESCO-CEPES).
Note
37. They suggest only two modifications to organisation. Recognising
the weight of the non-European Union members within the Bologna
process, ministers have agreed to institute co-presidencies of BFUG,
consisting of an European Union and a non-European Union member.
They have also agreed that ministers do not need to meet so often.
After a 2010 conference in Budapest, and a 2012 conference in Bucharest,
they will slip into three-year cycles until the next target date
to declare an EHEA is reached in 2020. It is implicit that the European
Union, not mentioned by name, will continue to fund the development
of the EHEA though Commission funds.
5 The future of the
EHEA
38. The following section of the report takes a parliamentary
view of what has been achieved within the Bologna Process and what
needs to change with the creation of a EHEA, as a preface to a final
section as to why and how the Council of Europe might make a fuller
contribution within an EHEA.
39. I have already raised some of the issues when, as authorised
by the committee, I went to the Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve conference
and I issued a statement.
Note
5.1 What has been achieved
by the Bologna Process 1999-2009
40. We can all agree that the Bologna Process has created
a new and unexpected dynamic of co-operation in higher education
across Europe. This co-operation is remarkable for being genuinely
Europe-wide and for demonstrating pan-European political assent
to some convergence of higher education structures, and indeed values.
I noted in my statement to the Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve conference
that the Bologna Process has led to:
- the recognition of higher education as a public responsibility;
- the reform of higher education systems in Europe in ways
which benefit from intercultural co-operation and meet the challenges
of a global knowledge society;
- greater compatibility and comparability of systems through
developing three-cycle degree structures;
- the emergence of a quality strategy based on the linkage
between qualifications frameworks, quality assurance and curriculum
reform, and the wider application of credit transfer and accumulation instruments;
- better support for research and teaching synergies;
- improved freedom of cross-border movement for students
and staff;
- acceptance of the legal obligations under the European
Cultural Convention of 1954 and the Lisbon Recognition Convention
of 1997, which has been achieved not just by governments, but by
political decisions by national parliaments.
5.2 What needs to change
2010-2020+
41. First, and most important, from the perspective of
the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, the EHEA now needs
the explicit and ongoing recognition and support of parliaments
and legislatures, not just of potentially changing majority governments
and their administrative teams. The EHEA will be different from,
and more than, the development process as represented by the Bologna
Process. The implementation of key principles and policies which
go beyond the higher education community requires broad-based political support.
42. The Bologna Process marks the stage within policy-making at
which the different parties come together and agree that they trust
each other enough, or they have sufficient incentives, or sufficient
fear of being left out, to work together to a common agenda. As
we have seen, this has developed into remarkable commitments like
the agreement to the common structure of bachelor-master-doctorate
degrees. With this structure, the Bologna participants have created
instruments which are designed to raise quality and self awareness
within higher education, and which will, through new recognition
procedures, enable our complex and diverse European systems to co-exist,
knowing that through joint action and some common policy objectives,
they have become easier to understand both within Europe, and to
a wider world of foreign students, foreign institutions and foreign
governments. Development work will naturally go on: this is one
of the most rewarding aspects of the Bologna Process.
43. National or regional education ministers will continue to
be the core decision-makers, and higher education institutions and
students the drivers of the process. However they alone will not
be able to make a reality of ambitious Bologna principles and policies,
such as social cohesion and equity, fair recognition, mobility accessible
for all students and academics as well as researchers.
44. Furthermore the Bologna Process/EHEA now has world-wide reach
with other countries interpreting the Bologna process in their own
way and making assumptions about what an EHEA can deliver. The interest
is not just in the USA and other English-speaking countries, but
also in Latin America and Asia.
45. The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly should be in
the lead in calling for wider and more secure public support for
higher education reform in 2010-2020+ in order to achieve the European
Higher Education Area.
46. Secondly, an EHEA needs steering structures which reflect
the full European membership of the Bologna Process, which includes
19 non-European Union members. Organisational structure must reflect
the work to be done, not past history. The announcement at Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve
of a modification to the steering process based on a European Union
model of a trio of presidencies, in which chairmanship changes hands
every six months, by appointing an non-European Union co-president,
may be a step in the right direction in the sense of giving more
participating countries a sense of “ownership”. But it may well
be difficult to implement. It is not clear that these steering processes
will bring about the active participation and contribution, on equal
terms, of those more recent members who have not been part of the
European Union, notably Turkey, Russia, or the countries of the
south Caucasus.
47. An EHEA needs steering and support structures which will provide
continuity, impartiality and openness. In modifying the rules on
the presidency of the BFUG, the Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve communiqué
highlights the fact that the volunteer host countries, which provide
a secretariat which changes hands with every ministerial conference,
become to an even greater extent the element of stability. Objectively
it is difficult to support the Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve communiqué
view that the existing organisational structure can be “endorsed
as fit for purpose” for an EHEA.
48. However the so-called “informal Bologna structure” which has
served Europe well during the “development decade” remains attractive
to ministers and members of the Bologna Follow Up Group alike. We must
take seriously the view of the current chair of BFUG that despite
being based mainly on a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ the Bologna process
has succeeded in establishing a framework in which key policies
are agreed at national level and implemented nationally and within
higher education institutions, and that there is a strong feeling
that no heavier formal structure should be developed.
49. We can agree that the institution of a formalised EHEA bureaucracy
is not necessarily appropriate. But the case for additional or other
support mechanisms for the secretariat of the EHEA should be investigated
in terms of ensuring effective continuity and accessibility (e.g.
the important issue of archives), professionalism and impartiality.
50. The third issue which arises from our initial questions is
that of further development work related to higher education concerns.
The further development work which the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly
should support includes:
- further
progress in creating synergies between research and teaching in
line with the European concept of a university;
- improvements in the way student body membership, and completion
rates, reflect the social and economic diversity of Europe’s populations;
- improvements in the contribution of higher education to
economic and social development in Europe, and to the employability
of graduates;
- widening participation through lifelong learning;
- the recognition of strands of higher education other than
those on existing western European models;
- complementing student mobility by teacher mobility. While
freedom of movement of persons and recognition of their social security
rights is guaranteed within the European Union, other European states may
make use of the Council of Europe’s European Social Charter with
regard to students and teachers in higher education;
- clarification of the role, though not necessarily the
exclusive role, of public funding in higher education;
- an open door to the accession to associate status, under
appropriate conditions, of countries outside Europe.
6 Opportunities for
the Council of Europe to further support the transition to an EHEA:
combining structure and vision for political, cultural and social
sustainability
51. The Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly
have for many years been active in contributing to the achievement
of improved transparency, continuity, collective memory, the participation
of the higher education sectors’ many partners, and wider and more
secure political and social support for higher education reform.
Its support for academic freedom and the development of university
autonomy is on record in the 2006 report of Mr Josef Jařab, as is
its support for national decision-making, and the place of national
or regional education ministries, institutions of higher education
and students as the engines of change.
52. In the knowledge that EHEA membership is virtually coterminous
with Council of Europe membership, and in echoing the speech made
at the Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve conference by the Council of Europe’s representative
on BFUG, that “Bologna must combine structure and vision” not just
for economic reasons but “for political, cultural, social and environmental
sustainability”,
Note I make the following observations
about different forms of potential Council of Europe support for
an EHEA.
53. The Council of Europe is providing secretariat services for
related and complementary platforms, such as the committee of the
Lisbon Recognition Convention, the Steering Committee on Higher
Education and Research and the Standing Conference of European Ministers
for Education. Synergies could easily be found with the secretariat
of the Bologna Process.
54. Such synergy could take different forms. It does not mean
the establishment of a full time EHEA secretariat, which would be
contentious. But although budget is limited for the Council of Europe
as for all other international organisations, the Council of Europe
secretariat could accommodate staff seconded temporarily by national
or regional administrations.
Note Such secondments
would avoid changing secretariat infrastructures and ensure greater
continuity, while maintaining the opportunity for individual states
to take a leading role.
55. As a first step, the Council of Europe should invite the Bologna
Follow-up Group and Board including the future host countries of
the ministerial conferences of the Bologna Process to discuss:
- possibilities of reinforcing
technical co-operation, for example by providing secretariat resources and offering
office space for seconded national experts;
- the creation of a partial agreement for that purpose which
could be open to representatives of governments, institutions of
higher education and student organisations from all countries participating in
the Bologna Process.
56. Given its composition of national parliamentarians from European
Parties to the Lisbon Recognition Convention, the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe should consider how to assist
in the implementation of the decisions taken at the ministerial
conferences of the Bologna Process.
7 Conclusions
57. The Parliamentary Assembly in welcoming the creation
of a EHEA in and after 2010, which would be designed to face the
challenges of a knowledge society and a global economy, resolved
on October 2008 to analyse and discuss with other stakeholders the
potential contribution of the Council of Europe to the development
of a EHEA. This resolution built on the fact that EHEA membership
is virtually coterminous with Council of Europe membership, and
that the Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly have for
many years been active in contributing to the achievement of improved
transparency, continuity, collective memory, the participation of
the higher education sectors’ many partners, and wider and more
secure political and social support for higher education reform.
58. This memorandum began by asking three questions: What must
change in policy terms with the transition to the EHEA? Does the
Council of Europe have a further role to play in underpinning the
democratic dimension of the EHEA? Can the Council of Europe contribute
to the support structures of the EHEA?
59. We have concluded that an EHEA, as distinct from the Bologna
Process, needs:
- more active
support from national Parliaments in order to advance the cause
of higher education in the nations of Europe, building on the achievements
in the decade of the Bologna Process;
- steering structures which better reflect the full European
membership of the Bologna Process, which includes 19 non-European
Union members;
- support structures which better ensure continuity, impartiality
and openness in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).
***
Reporting committee:
Committee on Culture, Science and Education
Reference to committee: Doc. 11752, Reference No. 3511 of 26 January 2009
Draft recommendation adopted
by the committee on 20 May 2009 with one abstention
Members of the committee:
Mrs Anne Brasseur, (Chairperson),
Mr Detlef Dzembritzki (1st Vice-Chairperson), Mr Mehmet Tekelioğlu (2nd Vice-Chairperson),
Mrs Miroslava Němcová, (3rd
Vice-Chairperson) Mr Vicenç Alay Ferrer, Mr Florin Serghei Anghel,
Mrs Aneliya Atanasova, Mr
Lokman Ayva, Mr Walter Bartoš,
Mrs Deborah Bergamini, Mrs Oksana Bilozir, Mrs Guðfinna S. Bjarnadóttir,
Mrs Rossana Boldi, Mr Ivan Brajović, Mr Petru Călian, Mr Miklós
Csapody, Mr Vlad Cubreacov, Mrs Lena Dąbkowska-Cichocka, Mr Joseph
Debono Grech, Mr Ferdinand Devínsky, Mr Daniel Ducarme, Ms Åse Gunhild
Woie Duesund, Mrs Anke Eymer, Mr Gianni Farina,
Mr Relu Fenechiu, Mrs Blanca Fernández-Capel
Baños (alternate Mr Gabino Puche Rodriguez-Acosta),
Mr Axel Fischer, Mr Gvozden Srećko Flego,
Mr Dario Franceschini, Mr José Freire Antunes,
Mrs Gisèle Gautier, Mr Ioannis Giannellis-Theodosiadis, Mr Martin
Graf, Mr Oliver Heald, Mr Rafael Huseynov, Mr Fazail İbrahimli,
Mr Mogens Jensen, Mr Morgan
Johansson, Mrs Francine John-Calame (alternate Ms Doris Fiala), Ms Flora Kadriu, Mrs Liana
Kanelli, Mr Jan Kaźmierczak,
Ms Cecilia Keaveney, Mrs
Svetlana Khorkina,Mr Serhii Kivalov, Mr Anatoliy Korobeynikov, Ms Elvira Kovács,
Mr József Kozma, Mr Jean-Pierre Kucheida, Mr Ertuğrul Kumcuoğlu, Ms Dalia Kuodytė, Mr
Markku Laukkanen, Mr René van der Linden, Mrs Milica Marković, Mrs
Muriel Marland-Militello, Mr Andrew McIntosh,
Mrs Maria Manuela de Melo, Mrs Assunta Meloni, Mr Paskal Milo, Ms
Christine Muttonen,Mr Tomislav
Nikolić, Mr Edward O'Hara, Mr Kent Olsson, Mr Andrey Pantev, Mrs
Antigoni Papadopoulos, Mrs Zatuhi Postanjyan,
Mrs Adoración Quesada Bravo, Mr Frédéric Reiss,
Mrs Mailis Reps, Mrs Andreja Rihter, Mr Nicolae Robu, Mr Paul Rowen,
Mrs Anta Rugāte, Mrs Ana Sánchez Hernández, Mr Leander Schädler,
Mr Yury Solonin, Mr Christophe Steiner, Mrs Doris Stump, Mr Valeriy Sudarenkov, Mr
Petro Symonenko, Mr Guiorgui Targamadzé, Mr Hugo Vandenberghe, Mr
Klaas De Vries, Mr Piotr Wach, Mr Wolfgang Wodarg.
N.B.: The names of the members who took part in the meeting
are printed in bold
Secretariat of the committee: Mr Ary, Mr Dossow
