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Brief Overview
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The Bologna Process: 1
July 2005 to 30 June 2007
The Bologna
Process: 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2009
The Bologna Process is currently the most important initiative for the
reform of higher education in Europe. Above all it seeks to provide for
an area of enhanced mobility for students and teachers in an atmosphere
of increased transparency and mutual recognition of qualifications
among universities. The participants in the Bologna Process seek to
forge this transparency through a common framework based on three
distinct levels of study: Bachelor, Masters, and Doctoral. In this way
it aims to construct standard paths towards the achievement of each of
these levels so that national diplomas obtained at each stage of
academic progression will translate directly into a fellow
participating country’s structure of higher education programs. In
short the essential plan of the Bologna Process is to work towards the
creation of what it has coined as a “European Higher Education Area” by
2010.
The Bologna Process has been a truly international effort owing its
origins to more two and a half decades of collaboration in Europe. The
original ideas that later shaped the course for the Bologna Declaration
were laid out in what has come to be known as the The Magna Charta
of University (external link) signed in the late 1980s at the
University of Bologna, the very location where these ideas would be
incorporated into the The
Bologna Declaration (external link) in mid June of 1999. The
conference that gave rise to this document was launched as a
collaborative effort of the ministers of higher education of several
European countries. The Bologna Process has remained primarily an
intergovernmental initiative driven by agreements and commitments made
by national authorities.
This process has progressively integrated an ever-greater number of its
initiatives with financial support and broader involvement of the
European Union. This increasing convergence is in part due to the fact
that certain goals cannot be achieved through national initiatives
alone, and in part because the prior collaborative links that the
Bologna Process builds on owe much to EU programmes of mobility and
exchange.
The
Bologna Process: 1 July 2005 to 30 June 2007
The UK provided a Secretariat to the Bologna Follow Up Group and its
Board from 1 July 2005 to 30 June 2007.
The aim of the UK during this time was to provide information and news
about the work programme and developments in the Bologna Process
leading up to the Bologna 5th Ministerial Conference in London on 17-18
May 2007.
See:
· Bologna
Secretariat Website
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/bologna/index.cfm?fuseaction=content.view&CategoryID=1
· Objectives of
the Bologna Process
http://www.europeunit.ac.uk/bologna_process/objectives_of_the_bologna_process.cfm
· 10 Bologna
Process Action Lines
http://www.europeunit.ac.uk/bologna_process/10_bologna_process_action_lines.cfm
· Decision
making with the process
http://www.europeunit.ac.uk/bologna_process/decision_making_within_the_process.cfm
The
Bologna Process: 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2009
From 1 July 2007 responsibility for providing the Secretariat passes to
the Benelux Countries and no further changes will be made to the above
mentioned UK website. The new official website address is: http://www.bologna2009benelux.org/
and the contact email address for the new Secretariat is: secr@bologna2009benelux.org
The Bologna 6th Ministerial Conference will take place in
Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve on 28-29 April 2009.
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