Appendix 1 to the reply
Comments of the Steering Committee for
Higher Education and Research (CDESR)
1. The Steering Committee for
Higher Education and Research (CDESR) welcomes the interest of the Parliamentary
Assembly in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and its support
for the Council of Europe’s contribution to this endeavour. It notes
with satisfaction that this is the second Parliamentary Assembly
recommendation on this topic, following
Recommendation 1620 (2003), and that the Assembly has considered a key aspect of
the EHEA in
Recommendation
1762 (2006) on “Academic freedom and university autonomy”. The CDESR
fully supports the call for national parliaments to engage with
higher education policies in general and the EHEA in particular
(paragraph 5).
2. As pointed out in paragraph 7, 2010 marks an important milestone
that makes the recommendation particularly timely. The fact that
in this year the Bologna Process will lead to the establishment
of the EHEA, does not mark a break or the end of a process. Rather,
the establishment of the EHEA is a call for further development
of higher education in Europe and the recommendation demonstrates
why the Council of Europe’s contribution is essential in this effort.
In this context, the CDESR points to the importance of the continuous
development of the EHEA through co-operation between public authorities,
higher education institutions, students, staff and international
institutions and organisations.
3. The development of the EHEA has brought higher education policies
to the centre of European policy making and the Council of Europe,
with its substantial contributions to the Bologna Process, has left
its mark on the shaping of the EHEA. As pointed out in the recommendation,
Council of Europe initiatives and its legal instruments have played
an important role in developing the EHEA. The Council of Europe/UNESCO Convention
on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education
in the European Region (ETS No. 165) remains the only legally binding
treaty of the EHEA. Its relevance is shown by the fact that all
members of the EHEA, except Greece and Italy, have now ratified
it. At the same time, the convention plays a major role in developing
good practice in the recognition of qualifications between the EHEA
and other parts of the world, both because it acts as a guide for
good practice and because it has now been signed or ratified by
a number of countries outside of the EHEA, such as Australia, Belarus,
Canada, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan,
Note New Zealand
and the United States.
4. The European Cultural Convention (ETS No. 18) provides the
institutional framework for the EHEA in that members must be Party
to this convention (paragraph 6), while their political authorities
must also commit to implementing the goals and policies of the EHEA
in their respective countries. In 2003, the Council of Europe played
an important role in modifying the framework of the EHEA from participation
in specified European Union programmes to accession to the European
Cultural Convention. It is this important change that has enabled
the EHEA to become truly European with the accession of Albania,
Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Holy See, Russia, Serbia and
“the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” in 2003, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia,
Moldova and Ukraine in 2005, Montenegro in 2007 and Kazakhstan in
2010. The Council of Europe has therefore played a key role in making
sure that, as stated in paragraph 7, “non-member states of the European
Union must not be left behind”. Only three States Party to the European
Cultural Convention are now not also members of the EHEA, which
has also attracted great interest from other countries.
5. Like the Assembly, the CDESR welcomes the progress made over
the past decade by the states participating in the Bologna Process
in defining common policies for European higher education (paragraph
6). The CDESR recalls that the EHEA builds on the basic values of
the Council of Europe, as underlined also by the reference in the
rcommendation to the importance of academic freedom and institutional
autonomy, without which societies cannot be fully democratic. The
CDESR shares the conviction that “Academic freedom and university
autonomy have been essential for the foundation of universities
in Europe and the admission of students from abroad for many centuries.”
(paragraph 4) . In this context, it would like to reiterate its
support for the suggestion made in Parliamentary Assembly
Recommendation 1762 (2006) that recognition of academic freedom and university
autonomy be required as a condition for membership of the Council
of Europe.
6. The Council of Europe has contributed substantially to the
three main areas of structural reform that have characterised the
development of the EHEA since 1999, in particular to the recognition
of qualifications and to the development of qualifications frameworks,
but also to improving quality assurance (paragraph 7). In the area
of recognition, the Council of Europe/UNESCO convention is the only
legally binding text of the EHEA and the ENIC Network
Note plays
an important role in developing the good practice that is needed
for this convention to function in practice. Nevertheless, a recent
analysis of national action plans for recognition shows that much remains
to be done to make the basic principle of the convention – that
applicants have the right to fair and timely recognition of their
qualifications – a reality. This underscores the importance of the
suggestion made in paragraph 13 that national parliaments actively
contribute to an open political debate and analyse their national requirements
and legislation regarding the creation of the EHEA. Further Council
of Europe engagement in the development of common professional practice
in quality assurance is also worth considering.
7. In the area of qualifications frameworks, the Council of Europe
has been an important actor since the concept was first brought
into the European policy debate in 2003 and since 2007 the Council
of Europe has taken the lead in “supporting the sharing of experience
in the elaboration of national qualifications frameworks” (Communiqué
of the Ministerial Conference of the Bologna Process held in London
in 2007). As such, the Council of Europe chairs the Bologna working
group on qualifications frameworks and it has developed close co-operation
with the European Commission (paragraph 9) which oversees the European
Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning adopted in 2008.
The Council of Europe’s key role in both these area makes it one
of the foremost centres of competence on issues relating to qualifications.
8. At the same time, the Council of Europe has underlined the
need to see structural reform in relation to the broader purposes
of higher education. Whereas public debate on higher education in
Europe tends to focus mainly on one mission – strengthening the
economy – the Council of Europe has identified four main purposes of
higher education, each of which are equally important and each of
which reinforce the others:
- preparation
for sustainable employment;
- preparation for life as active citizens in democratic
societies;
- personal development;
- the development and maintenance, through teaching, learning
and research, of a broad, advanced knowledge base.Note
9. Also within the EHEA, the Council of Europe is therefore arguing
the need for higher education to contribute to building democratic
societies based on human rights and the rule of law and fostering
fluency in intercultural dialogue.
Note
10. The CDESR fully supports the assertion that the realisation
of the EHEA depends on higher education institutions and students
and that they must become the driving force and owners of European
standards in higher education. In this context, the CDESR would
like to echo the point made by the recommendation that it constitutes
the only pan-European forum with equal participation of academic
and ministry representatives (paragraph 11) and that it also benefits
from the participation as observers by the main European NGOs in
the field. The CDESR co-operates closely with the European University
Association (EUA), the European Association of Institutions in Higher
Education (EURASHE), the European Students’ Union (ESU), Education International
(EI) and the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher
Education (ENQA), as well as with the International Association
of Universities (IAU), and it has carried out activities on student
participation in higher education governance. The joint activities
of the CDESR with the US Steering Committee of the International
Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy,
including two major Higher Education Fora held in Strasbourg, constitute
a valuable trans‑Atlantic co-operation and sharing of experience
on the role of institutions, staff and students in institutional
governance as well as in developing the role of higher education
in relation to broader societal issues and goals.
11. The CDESR fully supports the call on Greece and Italy to ratify
the Council of Europe/UNESCO Convention on the Recognition of Qualification
concerning Higher Education in the European Region (ETS No. 165)
(paragraph 15.2) and notes with satisfaction that Belgium and Spain
ratified the convention in 2009.
12. The CDESR also supports the suggestions made in paragraphs
15.3 and 15.4 that current Council of Europe instruments be analysed
with a view to ensuring the social rights of students and encourage
academic mobility. In particular, the CDESR undertakes to consider
proposing possible amendments to the European Agreement on continued
Payment of Scholarships to Students Studying Abroad (ETS No. 69).
13. The CDESR takes note of the suggestion that the EHEA will
need more permanent arrangements for its secretariat and that this
secretariat be entrusted to the Council of Europe. It notes that
discussions in the Bologna Follow-up Group have demonstrated that
there is no support for this suggestion among members of the Bologna
Process and the CDESR recalls that Ministers in their Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve
Communiqué confirmed that the present arrangements for a secretariat
to be provided by the host country of the upcoming ministerial conference
shall continue. The CDESR cannot support the recommendation on this
specific issue.
14. The CDESR is firmly convinced that the EHEA is one of the
major pan-European policy initiatives over the past decade and that
the Council of Europe contribution has been highly significant.
The CDESR believes that the Council of Europe contribution, as well
as its potential for contributing significantly to the further development
of the EHEA, fully justifies the recommendation in paragraph 15.5
to “allocate more resources to the Council of Europe’s higher education
sector including the Steering Committee for Higher Education and Research,
in order to provide greater support to the Bologna Process and the
creation of the European Higher Education Area”.
