Transcript 1. dia - UNeECC

„Inclusion through Education and Culture”
Joint Conference of the
The University Network of the European Capitals of Culture
and the
Compostela Group of Universities
14-15 October 2010
University of Pécs, Hungary
The Impact of Educational Policies and
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László I. Komlósi
University of Pécs, Hungary
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In my talk I intend to draw the outlines of a conceptual
framework that effectively unifies the inputs of both the
cultural environment and educational environment with
respect to the social dimensions of higher education in
what we may call
integrated social competence for Life Long Learning.
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More precisely, I would like to call for an analysis of a viable
higher educational system that is inherently reflective in
its character and, therefore, is able to provide for the
assessment of its impact on social cohesion and the
relevance and place of societal values in the social fabric.
For this purpose , I will argue for an integrated framework that
rests on both the social contextualization and the cultural
contextualization of the learning outcomes resulting in a
flexible and adaptive set of competence based social
skills.
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I will also argue that the university of the 21st century does
have a central role in the society while surrounded by a
clearly identifiable group of stakeholders and social
actors.
The university has to figure out and design its new status:
(i) it has to have a re-conceptualized mission with a vision,
(ii) it has to function as an argumentative community to
generate knowledge and skills under the auspices of
wisdom,
(iii) it has to seek holistic solutions to encourage joint action in
the society to help eradicate poverty, inequality and social
exclusion.
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In order to do that I will survey briefly some recent
developments in European higher educational policies.
I will try to point out that the shaping of the European Higher
Educational Area - unlike the formation of the European
Research Area - has been dominated by a general
philosophy based on two pillars: a fundamental pillar of
a non-regulative approach in which each member state
has the freedom to build on local or regional cultural and
educational heritage and another pillar permitting
coordination and harmonization of educational
achievements facilitating international mobility.
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No contradiction was believed to reside in the liberal
approach:
the acknowledgement of diversity in educational heritage
was deemed to be a straightforward added value to the
EHEA.
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The major events and the mainstream of changes and trends of
the past 20 years:
Magna Charta Universitatum 1988
Sorbonne Joint Declaration 1998
Bologna Declaration 1999
policy papers and communiqués
Prague 2001, Berlin 2003, Bergen 2005, London 2007,
Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve 2009
Green Paper 2009 - Learning Mobility of Young People
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The Bologna Process has been unfolding under the rather
paradoxical concept of „continuity and permanent change”.
The Bologna Process itself is a series of adjustments and
corrections for improvement triggered by system-internal
pressures.
However, the system-external conditions have also come into
play.
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„The social dimension of higher education presents the most
significant challenge to European cooperation as it is
perceived, conceived, understood and applied so differently
from one country to another.
Very few countries have set specific targets to improve the
participation of under-represented groups in higher education,
and only about half of the Bologna countries systematically
monitor their participation.”
Androulla Vassiliou
commissioner responsible for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth
In: Focus on Higher Education in Europe 2010: The Impact of the Bologna Process.
Eurydice 2010
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The London Communiqué defined the objective of the social
dimension as the 'societal aspiration that the student body
entering, participating in and completing higher education at
all levels should reflect the diversity of our populations'.
In order to move towards this objective, countries agreed that
the social dimension should be understood as an evolutionary
process leading to the objective that requires the ongoing
commitment and effort from all relevant stakeholders.
On this basis, each country pledged to develop its own
strategy and action plan for the social dimension, which would
initially call for the identification of possible underrepresented groups. Internationalized Learning Outcomes
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How does the issue of the social dimension of higher
education fit into the context of either the Bologna
Process or the Copenhagen Process?
Why has it not been an integral part of the Bologna Process or
the Copenhagen Process at all?
Why has it been left out from the guidelines and
recommendations of the past ten years?
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The Bologna Process, inaugurated in 1999, has a wide-ranging
agenda to create a European Higher Education Area that
will be more efficient and dynamic internally and more
attractive internationally than the fragmented national
systems that preceded it.
Three main objectives set out for the Bologna framework :
(i) international transparency
(ii) international recognition and
(iii) international mobility.
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The Copenhagen Process was developed from 2002 within the
perspective of lifelong learning, and aims to encourage
individuals to make use of the wide range of vocational
learning opportunities available, for example at school, in
higher education, at the workplace, or through private
courses. The lifelong learning tools should enable users to
link and build on learning acquired at various times, and
in both formal and non-formal contexts.
It concerns the employment sector (human resource
management) directly by identifying occupational
competences and specific behavioral and other attributes
required of workers to complete a job.
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We have witnessed the introduction of two European
frameworks: the Bologna Framework and the
Copenhagen (LLL) Framework that have existed next to
each other simultaneously for the past decade.
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Pedagogical approaches - in the domain of pedagogic theory and
practice some reformers advocated the use of learning
outcomes as a device for organizing the development of
curricula and assessment.
The Qualifications Framework for the European Higher
Education Area (Bologna framework) was adopted in May
2005 at the Bergen meeting of the ministers for higher
education under the Bologna Process.
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A major OECD report in 2007 identified qualifications
frameworks as one of the mechanisms whereby
qualifications systems can better serve lifelong learning. As
national qualifications frameworks spread, the question
began to arise, particularly in Europe, as to how national
qualifications systems could be related to each other. This
gave rise to the idea of a meta-framework of
qualifications.
The qualifications frameworks developed under both the
Bologna and Copenhagen Processes are policy instruments
voluntarily adopted by the political leadership of the
countries concerned, rather than having the force of treaty
or law.
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The European Recommendation on the European
Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF-LLL)
was adopted in April 2008 by joint decision of the European
Parliament and Council as an outcome of the European
Union’s education and training policy cooperation framework.
It builds on developments in the Copenhagen Process and the
Bologna Process.
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The Bologna Process and the Copenhagen Process had as goals
the reform of national systems of higher education and
vocational education and training (VET) within Europe.
These in turn are linked to the goals of labor market
development and improved economic competitiveness, as
enshrined, for example, in the Lisbon goals of the European
Union. The resultant meta-frameworks are tools to facilitate
comparisons of qualifications between systems, but the
intention is also to reform those national qualifications
systems. The introduction of national qualifications
frameworks has become, de facto, the principal mechanism
for bringing about these reforms. NQFs introduced under
these initiatives are invariably linked to quality assurance
and are based on learning outcomes.
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The status of national qualifications frameworks varies from
country to country, but in most countries they have
statutory or regulatory force. Moreover, some countries
now incorporate reference to either the Bologna
Framework and/or EQF-LLL into relevant national
legislation.
The political cooperation at a European level is being translated
into legal changes in the national systems.
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The next steps are to be made at the level of relevant national
legislation.
How can universities influence national level legal decisions?
How can university representation be secured in the negotiations
with local politicians?
Are universities prepared for the negotiation with proposals of
new content, new methods of learning and assessment?
Are universities prepared at this crucial historical moment to
speak up and act with critical solidarity towards their
governments in order to secure the long-term status of the
university:
to function as an incubator for young adult people and provide
refinement conditions for their graduates.
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Migration
Mobility
Peregrination
Academic mobility
in light of educational processes
These are universal phenomena to be analyzed from
European and global perspectives.
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Main questions:
What is the nature of knowledge that is useful for humanity?
What types of educational processes can be effective today?
What should be the character of international educational
experience?
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Education in its broadest sense is any act or experience that
has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical
ability of an individual.
In its technical sense education is the process by which society
as a cultural community deliberately transmits its accumulated
knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another.
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Education in opposition to Erudition: a life experience
How important is education? Is it still effective on a large
scale? In what forms should it be conveyed to the citizens?
Should it be a participatory practice? Is Life Long Learning a
feasible objective and a realistic undertaking? What access
conditions apply? Can it be financed on the long run?
What is the reality of formal educatioin vs informal education?
Whar are the possibilities for higher learning and vocational
trainig? How crucial are the informal levels?
Education at the informal level: in museums and libraries, via the
internet and in life experience, intercultural experiences included.
Many non-traditional education options are now available which
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continue to evolve. László
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A minor but not a trifle detour
Education (1890) - Chittenden Memorial Window
by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios
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Education is a stained-glass window commissioned from Louis
Comfort Tiffany's Tiffany Glass Company during the building of
Yale University's Chittenden Hall funded by Simeon Baldwin
Chittenden.
Personifications of Art, Science, Religion and Music are
represented in the work as angels. Other angelic representations
of related virtues, values and ideas attend them, each identified
by words in their halos.
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Can we today aim at an educational process whose results will
ultimately yield universal knowledge or universally applicable
knowledge? How do skills and aptitudes relate to knowledge?
Can we still cherish ideas about erudition and erudite citizens?
Is knowledge going to be a possession of a few privileged
ones as a private affair based on individual curiosity?
Will knowledge be compartmentalized, fragmented and
scattered? How to avoid the danger of mechanistic knowledge?
What function will knowledge have in a knowledge society?
Are we not cheating ourselves under the pretext of
Knowledge and knowledge management?
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Seats and centers of knowledge existed a long time ago in the
history of mankind. We have evidence of places of higher
learning in China, India, Egypt, Mezopotamy, Greece,
Central-Asia, etc. etc. even some 5.000 years back.
There must have been mobility and migration of itinerant
workers and farm hands, craftsmen, merchants and academics
all the way through human history.
We have evidence that the mosques in Damascus, Jerusalem
or Cordoba were built and decorated not only by local
builders, but by Byzantian, Persian, Indian and Egyptian
migrants as well.
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We witness peregrins studying at European universities in the
Middle-Ages. After the foundation of the first modern
European university in Bologna in 1088, peregrinatio became
a means of obtaining international educational experience.
However, with Latin being the universal language of studies,
education was relatively homogeneous across Europe.
Vernaculars were used locally, thus peregrin students must
have been exposed to local languages as well. The linguistic
situation slowly changed after Reformation, thus Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, English, German, Czech,
Polish, Swedish, Russian became languages of instruction in
Europe from Coimbra to Dorpat and Bologna to Oxford.
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World War II is definitely a water-shed in the history of global
education. The term international education has acquired a
completely new meaning. Education has become a
commodity both in local and international contexts.
Europe has changed dramatically – a long dream of many has
come true: the European Union is an alliance of European
states and nations to secure peace in Europe.
However, the EU is also a huge bureaucratic organization with
many hidden agendas. The educational market is not exempt
from complex sets of interests, aspirations and diverse trends .
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I have tried to show in my presentation that many aspirations
and intentions at the level of the EHEA have identified
inevitable and necessary directions to follow.
However, short-term, local political interest have dominated
over long-term academic vision.
The elaboration of national qualification frameworks based on
learning outcomes and integrated social competence offer
a unique opportunity to many universities to take their
own future in their hands: the Bologna proccess can be
and should be revised critically and wisely by the
universities themselves in the very near future.
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Thank you for your attention!
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