Bologna Process
The Bologna Process is a series of ministerial meetings and agreements between European countries to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher-education qualifications.
The process was opened to other countries in the European Cultural Convention[2] of the Council of Europe, and government meetings have been held in Prague (2001), Berlin (2003), Bergen (2005), London (2007), Leuven (2009), Budapest-Vienna (2010), Bucharest (2012), Yerevan (2015), Paris (2018), and Rome (2020).
One year before the declaration, education ministers Claude Allègre (France), Jürgen Rüttgers (Germany), Luigi Berlinguer (Italy) and Baroness Blackstone (UK) signed the Sorbonne declaration in Paris in 1998, committing themselves to "harmonising the architecture of the European Higher Education system".
The ESU, EUA, EURASHE, EI, ENQA, UNICE, the Council of Europe and UNESCO are part of the process' follow-up.
Four countries, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, and the unrecognized Northern Cyprus and Kosovo, have applied to join but did not meet the membership criteria.
Northern Cyprus is not a party to the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe and not recognized as an independent political entity by any member of the Bologna Process except Turkey.
The framework[10] adopted by the ministers at their meeting in Bergen in 2005 defines the qualifications in terms of learning outcomes, which are statements of what students know and can do on completing their degrees.
Some countries introduced the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) and discussed their degree structures, qualifications, financing and management of higher education and mobility programmes.
The University of Andorra[11] has adapted its classroom studies to the European Higher Education Area in accordance with the Bologna Agreement.
Although the nominal duration of doctoral programmes is two or three years, the time to graduate varies considerably and is generally longer.
The old degrees are translated as follows: In May 2008, about 5,000 students protested weak funding, imprecisely defined new rules and the poor results of the Bologna reform.
[16] A corresponding change has been made in military higher education, where the officer's degree was divided between bachelor's and master's programmes.
Before the LMD reform amid the 2000s which implemented the Bologna Process, it was followed by a two-year Diplôme d'études universitaires générales (DEUG) and a third-year Licence (the equivalent of a UK bachelor's degree).
Intended as a doctorate with a more practical approach than research, it included the production of a 120-page paper which was defended to a jury of three international specialists in the field.
[19] Strikes occurred in 2002 and 2003[20] and 2007[21] protesting LMD reform, focusing more on under-funding of French universities since May 1968 than on the Bologna Process.
Although the two major student organisations object to some aspects of its application to the French system, they generally welcome the European process.
Although Georgia joined the Bologna Process in 2005 at the Bergen summit, steps towards the establishment of the European Higher Education Area were completed earlier.
Human and veterinary medicine and dentistry (300–360 credits) are integrated programs with a qualification equal to a master's degree.
One hundred and eight majors were available for selection (compared with over 400 in 2005), of which six are exempt from the bachelor's-master's division: law, human and veterinary medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and architecture.
According to an online poll[23] by the National Tertiary Education Information Centre, 65 percent of respondents thought it unnecessary to adopt the system.
A five-year degree, Laurea Magistrale a Ciclo Unico (Single-cycle Master's Degree) is awarded in law (Giurisprudenza), in Primary teacher education (Scienze della Formazione Primaria), in Architecture (Architettura), in Pharmacy (Farmacia) and Pharmaceutical Sciences (Chimica e Tecnologia Farmaceutiche), as well as in visual arts (Accademia di Belle Arti) and music (Conservatorio di Musica).
Due to the Bologna Process, in 2005 new licenciatura (licentiate) degrees were organized at university and polytechnic institutions of Portugal.
Some Bologna courses are integrated five- or six-year programmes awarding a joint master's degree, a common practice in medicine.
The new licenciatura, obtained after three years of study, corresponds to the discontinued bacharelato awarded by polytechnics from the 1970s to the early 2000s (roughly equivalent to an extended associate degree).
Its flexibility and transparency is intended to enable wider recognition of student qualifications, facilitating movement around a European Higher Education Area based on two main cycles (undergraduate and graduate) and providing third-cycle degrees for doctoral candidates.
[33] Universities inserted a BSc diploma in the middle of their standard specialist programmes, but the transition to MS qualification has not been completed.
The labour market does not yet understand BSc diplomas, but some universities made the program similar to classical education and the MS stage remains mandatory for most graduates.
[36] A bill proposing new regulations in the field of Higher Education was presented to Parliament in 2005, and the new system came into force in July 2007.
Some universities only give Fail or Pass grades (F or P) for certain courses (such as internship and thesis projects) or assignments, such as laboratory exercises.
The first devoted to a single academic discipline, Chemistry Studies in the European Higher Education Area (which approved Eurobachelor), was held in June 2004 in Dresden.
