德国的博洛尼亚改革与高等教育学制与学位结构变迁

经过十年来的博洛尼亚改革,德国在2009/2010冬季学期已有79.2%的专业采用了颁发学士/硕士学位的新学制。也就是说,颁发新型学位的专业已经在很大程度上取代了颁发传统学位的专业。不过,在新型学士/硕士专业注册的学生人数目前仅占全部学生人数的42.9%。这表明,博洛尼亚进程虽然改变了德国传统的学制与学位结构,但在德国尚未实现其预定的目标。传统与新型学制和学位的并存是当前德国高等教育体制的一个突出特点。此外,当前改革中出现的一些问题也令德国对博洛尼亚改革的改革变得必要。     

博洛尼亚进程中意大利高等教育学位制度改革

"采用以两个层次为主的学位体系"是"博洛尼亚进程"改革中的重要内容.为融入欧洲高等教育区,继续推行高等教育自治和克服传统高等教育学位制度的弊端,意大利政府在<博洛尼亚宣言>颁布后实施学位制度改革,引入了"3+2"双层学位制度.本文在分析意大利实施学位制度改革的背景与动因的基础上,阐述了其改革措施、改革成效、改革中遇到的问题与解决方法,以期对我国高等教育学位制度改革有所借鉴.     

欧洲高等教育质量保障区域整合的进展及启示

质量保障体系构建是欧洲高等教育区的核心,尤其是2003年以来,欧洲高等教育质量保障体系取得了很大进展。本文回顾了欧洲高等教育区域整合的过程,尤其是从1999年开始的博洛尼亚改革进程,从政策和实践的角度分析了博洛尼亚改革进程对欧洲高等教育质量保障体系建设的推动,并指出了对我国区域整合、高等教育质量保障的研究和实践的借鉴意义。     

The Bologna process and its impact on higher education at Russia’s margins: the case of Kaliningrad

Embracing the Russian Federation since 2003, the Bologna process is no longer exclusively confined to western European countries. As early as 1999, Vladimir Putin declared the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged between Lithuania and Poland, as a potential pilot region for intensified cooperation between Russia and the EU on a number of policy areas, including higher education. In this paper, we study whether the Bologna process has served to underpin these ambitions. With a view to the EU, we will ask to what extent the European Union has proffered a model or directly influenced the path for transformation of Kaliningrad’s higher education system. We argue that a number of Kaliningrad-based actors in higher education have recognized the salience of European models and the need to work closely with partners from the EU, while Moscow only allows for marginal discretion in terms of Kaliningrad’s higher educational policy.

Regional themes and global means in supra-national higher education policy

The supra-national level has become increasingly important in educational policy formulation. This paper describes and compares two settings in which growth in these supra-national policies is evident—in Europe and in Africa. Key themes arising in policy documents in each context are examined. A distinction is drawn in analysis between themes classified as ‘global means’, such as qualification frameworks and quality assurance mechanisms, which are becoming international norms and which show close similarity across contexts, and regional goals or ‘themes’ in supra-national policy. The paper argues that although there are apparent similarities between the policy goals espoused in ‘regional themes’, context plays an important part in understanding the meanings of these policy goals. In closer analysis, there are differences both in the underlying problems which the policy goals are intended to address, and in the prioritisation given to these goals. This finding is examined in the light of debates regarding policy convergence, specifically drawing on Vaira’s (2004) framework for institutional analysis.     

European Citizens under Construction: The Bologna process analysed from a governmentality perspective

This article focuses on problematizing the harmonisation of higher education in Europe today. The overall aim is to analyse the construction of the European citizen and the rationality of governing related to such a construction. The specific focus will be on the rules and standards of reason in higher education reforms which inscribe continuums of values that exclude as they include. Who is and who is not constructed as a European citizen? Documents on the Bologna process produced in Europe and in Sweden are analysed drawing on the Foucauldian notion of governmentality, showing a neoliberal rationality of governing. The European citizen needs to become flexible, autonomous and self‐regulating as a way of facing the threats of the constantly changing future. The technique of diversity is a condition of possibility for constructing such a citizen and for harmonising higher education in Europe. Further, the current power relations in the discourse define what is and what is not European, thus constructing ‘the other’, the one who is excluded.     

New academics negotiating communities of practice: learning to swim with the big fish

Abstract

Student evaluations of teaching constitute a recurring theme for debate within the tertiary education literature particularly in relation to validity and reliability. My aim in this paper is to highlight the dependence of student evaluative capabilities on their own beliefs and assumptions about knowledge constituting ‘ways of knowing’, which will differ from one student to the next, and to advocate that this is taken into account when evaluations of teaching are analysed and interpreted. I begin by addressing the nature of the student evaluation process, its current perceived status in higher education and in relation to student expectations in the present consumerist culture from which universities are not exempt. I then go on to focus on cognitive development implicit in higher education, and consider its impact on student expectations and consequent evaluations. Finally, I suggest that promoting an understanding of changing and developing epistemic assumptions of students should be an essential component of the explicit curriculum to the benefit of both students and lecturing staff, and recommend the exploration of more qualitative approaches to student evaluation.     

Inland Water Quality Assessment - A Joint European Masters Programme

At present, there is a European shortage of personnel qualified to adequately address the comprehensive scientific and regulatory requirements of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The joint Masters programme described in this paper will provide students with the requisite expert knowledge and skills to progress the implementation of the WFD. Its development was financially supported by the European Commission because of its specific goal of producing qualified personnel in relation to the implementation of the WFD. Since its proposed structure acknowledges the educational intent of the Bologna Accord, it thereby provides a useful template for structuring a Masters degree-level programme in accordance with Bologna principles.     

Political and Individual Rationales of Student Mobility: a case-study of ERASMUS and a French regional scheme for studies abroad

The aim of this article is to analyse political rationales for promoting student mobility in Europe and discuss these in the light of individual experiences of mobile students. Since the creation of the ERASMUS programme in 1987, student mobility in Europe has been the subject of unusual political promotion. More recently, in the context of the Bologna process, the goal of increasing student mobility has been reaffirmed by various higher education actors. Student mobility is thought to be both a component of the European Higher Education Area and one of its outcomes. Beyond this apparent widespread acceptance, we examine, on the one hand, underlying legitimating ideas and rationales that accompanied the institutionalisation of student mobility by the European Commission and a regional French authority. We also discuss the extent to which drives for mobility and outcomes at the individual student level are in line with the political perceptions and expectations of the above‐mentioned institutional actors.     

The Bologna Process: the democracy–bureaucracy dilemma

The Bologna Process was aimed at making a Europe of Knowledge possible, but the standardisation process following the development of the European Higher Education Authority challenged its democratic values; the autonomy of the bureaucratic part of higher education institutions has been strengthened while their faculty members have less formal power. This article examines this dilemma using Weber’s remarks on the bureaucratisation of education as a tool to reveal the ratio between democracy and bureaucracy in the process of establishing the EHEA 1999–2010 – a dilemma never solved, hence important to be aware of.