Transcript COUNCIL OF EUROPE Directorate of School, Out-Of-School And Higher Education, Higher Education and Research Division and PEOPLES’ FRIENDSHIP UNIVERSITY OF RUSSIA INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR MAKING THE EUROPEAN.

COUNCIL OF EUROPE
Directorate of School, Out-Of-School And Higher Education, Higher Education and
Research Division
and
PEOPLES’ FRIENDSHIP UNIVERSITY OF RUSSIA
INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR
MAKING THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION AREA
A REALITY: THE ROLE OF STUDENTS
Making the European Higher
Education Area a Reality: the
Role of Students
The Social Dimension of Higher Education
Moscow
2-3 November 2006
Germain Dondelinger
Goals set forward in the
Bologna Declaration
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Adoption of a system of easily readable and
comparable degrees  bachelor/master/PhD EQF
Adoption of a degree structure based on two main
cycles Berlin : 3 cycles
Adoption of a system of credits  ECTS
Elimination of obstacles that impede mobility of
students and job seekers
Promotion of European co-operation in quality
assurance
Promotion of necessary European dimension in
higher education
Promotion of social dimension (Prague)
Social Dimension
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The Social Dimension includes all
provisions needed for having equal
access to, progress in and completion of
higher education.
The Social Dimension aims at reducing
social gaps and at strengthening social
cohesion.
Equitable access
Higher education should reflect the make-up
of the social body and thus reflect the
diversity of the populations.
outreach strategies/anti-discrimination
legislation/positive discrimination
quid selection of students on the basis of
merit and capacity + quid quality assurance?
whose responsibility: state or institution?
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Access- mobility
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Mobility should be available to all.
Need to make every effort to remove all
obstacles to mobility, inter alia
recognition of study periods, portability
of grants and loans and visa policies.
Socio-economic living
conditions
Each student should be able to support himself
while studying. Yet, how to define “support”:
 Different systems of grants and loans in the
EHEA (grants independent of parents’
income, dependent on parents’ income,
states without grants)
 Different income tax systems
 Different systems of tuition fees
The social dimension and the
welfare state
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Education and the university by extension act
as a public instrument for the re-distribution
of wealth through investing in social mobility
and above all through public investment in
the younger generation. This welfare state
model defines and measures how far the
university has met its obligations of social
cohesion in terms of groups defined by social
background or relative disadvantage.
The social dimension university community
The social dimension also includes a definition
of the social relations that exist among
people.
participation of students in the decision
making processes of the university
the values of the academic community:
probity, intellectual rigor, disinterested
research, critical questioning of long held
assumptions, etc
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The foundation stones
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The Enlightenment ideal of education was
Bildung, i.e. producing responsible,
autonomous and mature individuals, with
strong emphasis on national Bildung.
close alignment of higher education with the
public service: “effectis civilis”, i.e. certain
university degrees are held to be valid to
compete for a place in public service
Is this the ultimate definition of “higher
education as a public good”?
The economic dimension
EU policies: the Lisbon Agenda
 The political insight that the positive development of
central Community activities, particularly those
concerning innovation, competitiveness and
employment, depends heavily on human resources
and thus on high-quality education and training.
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Awareness in the political community that in global
competition the EU will be visible and play a leading
role only if it presents itself as an education area with
common, internationally attractive education and
training programmes.
The economic dimension 2
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The relationship between social cohesion and
economic development which, in the welfare
state interpretation of higher education, saw
social cohesion as the path that led on to
economic future, was reversed. Economic
development is the prior condition to social
stability. This is not to say that the place of
the university is any less central to society.
Change of paradigm for
universities
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Universities are agents of change if:
Deregulation institutional autonomy
accountability
Next to the establishment of private
providers, the pressure on universities for
transparency and public accountability, the
focus on costs and effectiveness, the use
made of performance contracting signal the
invasion of a corporate/culture/business
attitude into the academic world.
Change of paradigm
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The primacy of the institution and
organisation over the community;
The student as “client” of the service
provider but also acting as client.
A new social dimension for
universities
1) socialising students to their role in society
 Socialising to the community, which means
preparation for civic engagement or
democratic participation (preparation for the
participation in the community as citizens of a
democracy),
 socialising to the life of mind which consists in
introducing students to intellectual concepts
and giving them the ability to think critically,
 socialising to the profession.
A new social dimension for
universities
2) providing all citizens with social
mobility :
in a society that is knowledge driven
access to higher education determines
who fully participates in society.
A new social dimension for
universities
3) upholding the university as the home of
disinterested scholarship and unfettered
debate : “Pasteur’s quadrant”. Motivated by
the practical need to prevent food from
spoiling, Pasteur uncovered previously
unimagined forms of life and thus laid the
foundations of microbiology a century ago.
Basic science was advanced because people
had a practical need to know.
Pasteur’s quadrant
Creative production of new
knowledge
Pasteur
User friendly innovation
The social dimension as part
of the Knowledge Triangle
Education
Research
Innovation
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Thank you very much for your attention