Dear ministers,
Dear rectors,
Dear fellow students,
Since years before the European Students Movement was created, students
have played an important role in shaping the future of our societies. Acting as
a positive driver for change, many of the human rights we enjoy today are a
result of the actions of students all around
In the twenty five years of our existence, we have realised that
European and international processes are increasingly influencing higher
education and that students therefore deserve to have a strong representative
organisation to make their case on the European level – that is why we have chosen the occasion of our 25th
anniversary to change our name to - The European Students’ Union.
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We now represent 47 national unions of students in 36 countries and in
this way represent more than 11 million students in
It is also a pleasure to see so many delegations which all have brought
a student, recognising our role in shaping a European Higher Education Area. However, I must also note that we have
received many messages that governments are still influencing and pressuring
students and their representatives. In the year 2007, we still face the sad
situation where not every country is ready to place students in the centre of policy
making. One of the shocking results of our survey is that students all over
I am here to tell you what happened to the Bologna Process in the past two
years with student eyes. I will not miss this opportunity to also tell you what
students believe to be the key challenges for the next ten years.
The main message I want to convey today is that we believe that:
A future vision, a
rekindling of the
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What makes our survey unique is that it is an honest representation of
the views of the students in your countries. Rather than focusing on the issues
mentioned in the stocktaking, we have set up our own questions and definitions,
which relate to our views. The overall
question which we wanted to answer was: How has the
I want to start positively, addressing two key reform areas for students:
Student Participation in Quality Assurance and the new building blocks of our
curricula – the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System.
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Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance is of major importance to us, since it has become the
way to directly improve our education, on any level. The other surveys already
confirm our findings: major steps are taken to involve students in improving
their education as long as something is
done with all the surveys that we fill in.
The map I am showing you is much greener than it was before, with 15
countries featuring dark green, involving students at national, institutional
and faculty or departmental level. That still leaves many countries with major
steps to take, but we have good confidence that our added value is recognised.
Making major improvements of the quality of higher education still means
that students have to be properly included in the process as participants
rather than clients. Also, the European Register on Quality Assurance Agencies
can become an important tool in providing more transparency and recognition of
what quality means to us.
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ECTS
We believe that the new building blocks of our curricula, being measured
in workload and learning outcomes, being a good tool for recognition and
transparency, will allow more students to become mobile. The map I am showing here shows that two
thirds of the surveyed countries have the ECTS system in place, with most of
the other countries stating that a national credit system similar to ECTS has
been implemented.
So our first thoughts are sincere congratulations to almost everyone
here. However, a simple glance below the surface tells a different story. ECTS
is built up of three main components:
-
Measuring
workload
-
Accumulation
of credits
-
Learning
outcomes
When we take an integral look at those three components, our results are
more negative.
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Still, there is no country that can claim to have fully implemented ECTS
with all its components in all higher education institutions.
Our analysis here is that rather than fundamentally changing our
perception of education, structures are being reformed for the sake of
structures. Results on the implementation of the three cycle system and other
action lines generally support this finding. The paradigm shift we want to
make: from an institution or teacher based education to a student centred
system has not taken place yet.
Core Areas
The two core areas I
want to address today are mobility and social dimension. Not that these are
necessarily more important than other areas, indeed: it is our point of view
that what matters is an integral implementation of the
The Social Dimension
Equal opportunities have always been one of the priorities of the
student movement and we are more than happy to see that this topic is slowly
becoming a priority area, with the collection of data, and the creation of
national action plans. We see that higher education is still reproducing many
existing inequalities between for example men and women, by excluding many
underrepresented groups.
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The past two years have shown us that equal opportunities have been
threatened by many reforms directly or indirectly related to the Bologna
Process. Although recognising that the social dimension is a broad and
transversal action line we have one major concern: the funding gap acting as a
ritual mantra is used to excuse governments to demand more funding from
students, instead of finding real alternative funding. As you can
see, students all over
Mobility
A European Higher Education Area or cannot be sustainable without
different cultures meeting each other, without students meeting other students
and developing a common understanding of what Europe means to them. As we know
from the data which exists, mobility is still only a reality for a small elite
and is too often a one way street from East to
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The main obstacles to mobility are widely known and need to be tackled
with urgency. Restricted Visa procedures, lack of recognition, lack of portable
loans and grants and additional financial support are those areas where action
has to be taken. Moving on mobility
means convincing the colleagues in your cabinets that the borders of our
countries should not stay the borders of our education programmes. For the
Bologna Process to be a success, you have to engage in a public debate on why the
concept of
Why are we so negative?
The Bologna Process has set out to drastically change the world of
higher education through creating a European Higher Education Area. Every
student would get the chance to enjoy something European, either in their
degrees or by going abroad. The quality of higher education would greatly
improve, making institutions accountable to all students. And most importantly,
students would get more opportunities to start or finish a degree.
But instead we too often see structures being debated for the sake of
structures, implementation of action lines without passion, without a clear
vision behind them. The Bologna Process faces the danger of sliding into a
technocratic, bureaucratic discourse which threatens so many European processes
today. I would like to provoke the leadership in this room to rekindle the
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The future of higher education should not be based on systems, but on
the individuals and thoughts which are present in our societies. Our vision for
a Higher Education in the next decade is fundamentally based upon the human
right to education. Let me light some of the candles I have brought with me to
show how the Bologna Process can be rekindled by a simple action:
Firstly, it is a major challenge to extend
globalisation beyond the domain of economics and let it affect higher education
in cultural and societal dimensions. Mobility of individuals that extends
beyond a small elite, should become the spark of a new era of globalisation.
Secondly, We must enable more students and graduates to
enter the labour market with a higher education degree. Our focus should be on
accessing and completing higher education, improving the socio-economic
conditions of students and enable them to find the job they want to have. Serious
investments should be made to achieve this aim and let the student population
flourish.
Thirdly, Students
must be enabled to play their part in research, innovation and knowledge
development in responsible higher education institutions. Students, recognised
as early stage researchers should be allowed to use new technologies in an
early stage and take ideas to a higher level.
And finally, students must be placed in the centre of
their higher education institutions and become responsible for the future of
themselves and their education. Higher Education should play an active role in
stimulating democracy and active citizenship. This paradigm shift should force institutions
and curricula to become fully democratic and deliver that what needs to be
delivered.
Since our realities and discussions are still far away from this vision,
I hope these candles provide students with some extra hope.
We do believe that a
rekindling of the
Thank you.