Progress on the Bologna Process─Europe’s ambitious, decade-old effort to make higher education degrees and systems more comparable and consistent—is incomplete and varies widely among countries and institutions. And the net impact of Bologna depends on who and where you are, said Paul Gaston, author of The Challenge of Bologna: What United States Higher Education Has to Learn From Europe, and Why It Matters That We Learn It.

Gaston, Trustees Professor at Kent State, gave an update and led wide-ranging discussions about the process and its implications for the US at GMAC’s Annual Industry Conference in San Diego.

Back in 1999, education ministers from 29 European countries agreed to create the European Higher Education Area and identified priorities to be completed by 2010. The fact that the original initiative was extended another decade in March points to its partial success, Gaston said. By the time the process was extended to 2020, it had grown to include 47 countries, and progress was decidedly mixed:

• A standard three-cycle structure (three year bachelor’s, two-year master’s, and doctorate) is largely in place on paper, but some institutions have simply divided existing five-year programs into three-year and two-year programs.
• Diploma Supplements, which explain educational credentials to employers and foreign institutions, have been adapted widely, but still lack broad public understanding.
• An overarching pan-European qualifications network, the start of an “accountability loop,” is in place, but few nations have responded with national frameworks.
• Tuning, discipline-by-discipline rubrics for student performance, has produced consensus on highly diverse standards for some disciplines, but not all.
• A central registry for academic credentials is in operation for some credentials.
• The social dimension, including improving access to higher education, has several meanings, and progress has been slowed by the global recession.

Although the education ministers have agreed to reform on paper, implementation on the institutional level has been uneven, and student mobility has increased only marginally, Gaston noted. In addition, the focus on higher education as the driver of economic growth arguably neglects the general, liberal arts value of education and gives short shrift to the social dimension. Finally, the economic crisis has slowed the process, although its effects vary greatly in different countries.

Bologna, with its goal of having Europe regain its eminence in higher education, is seen by some as a threat to US dominance. Nonetheless, the process has numerous shared pursuits with educational reform in the US that make it a useful model, Gaston said. As he writes in his book, “By creating an aggressive and comprehensive agenda, one braiding several reform strands into a coordinated effort, Bologna challenges the United States to consider the advantages of a more fully unified approach.”

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