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The Unintended Effects of the Bologna Reforms
Sybille Reichert
When the Bologna Declaration was signed 10 years ago, the 29 ministers’ commitment to concerted national reforms of their higher education systems and to the creation of common and readable degree structures was not taken seriously at first. Many stakeholders saw these goals as the inflated rhetoric that had become typical of European ministerial meetings. Now, however, close to the self-set deadline of 2010, after a process of unprecedented ministerial peer pressure, most of the reform objectives appear implemented, albeit in most countries in a merely formal and superficial manner. The ideal of the Bologna reforms to improve the quality and international attractiveness of European higher education remains a vision, for it would have needed substantial investments, which few countries were ready to carry out. The prospect involved multiple policies: student-centered teaching, flexible curricula and learning paths, transparent descriptions of learning outcomes to facilitate student mobility and interinstitutional recognition of [program] study periods and higher education’s adaptation to more diverse student qualifications and labor-market needs. However, such trends would have required better student-staff ratios and staff development than most countries were ready to provide. At this juncture, one should go beyond accounting for shortfalls—as helpful as that may be to refuel a deeper reform—and examine some unintended and unnoticed effects of the Bologna reforms that may have profoundly changed higher education, but only in ways unforeseen by the visionaries. Effects at the System Level An osmosis. The Bologna process has created such a dense network of policy exchange and institutional comparison that one may expect policy choices at all levels to transpire much more rapidly into the political contexts of other European countries. The spread of policy discussions between countries has reached an unforeseen intensity that makes the European higher education landscape begin to appear as a common “European higher education area.” Bologna has brought about frequent transnational exchanges and policy consulting between European rectors’ conferences and university presidents in similar transitions. For example, the Slovak design of research evaluation was inspired by parts of the English Research Assessment Exercise; the French Programme Campus, in which 10 high-quality universities receive infrastructure support after competitive bidding, was modeled after the German Excellence Initiative; as well as the many national merger incentives that have been picked up from the Scandinavian practice. A catalyst. The Bologna rhetoric of urgency and international competitiveness and the far-reaching systemic implications of its curricular and quality objectives have also acted as a stimulation for other “urgent” national reforms. Many national reform agendas went well beyond the Bologna “action lines” and were presented as inevitable ingredients of an increasingly international higher education arena. They often included increased institutional autonomy, new governance structures with stronger institutional leadership and more stakeholder influence, and greater proportions of performance-based funding. Examples include Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, some of the German Länder, Belgian Flanders, Portugal, Slovakia, and most recently Spain. A recent European Commission–funded study on governance in Europe documents these convergences. Vocational drift. With the emphasis on graduates’ “employability” and on the labor-market relevance of the new bachelor’s-degree level, the Bologna reforms strengthened the position of the more professionally oriented higher education institutions, such as the Fachhochschulen, in many higher education systems in Europe (as can be seen in Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, and, to a lesser extent, in Switzerland). Together with the Lisbon agenda’s emphasis on innovation, the status of the less-traditional functions of universities rose to public recognition. While research universities have advanced, through international rankings, as an essential element of an internationally oriented higher education system, the overall effect of the weakened role of basic research and traditional academic research training can still be noted. Doctoral training is being reviewed in its efficacy and relevance for nonacademic employment. The resulting attention to transferable research skills training, which can be seen in Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Belgium and France, may well be observed as an indirect effect of the Bologna reforms. Mass vs. elite degrees. Recent studies on the implementation of the Bologna reforms show that the new two-tier curricula are often structured as a more mass-oriented bachelor’s- and a more selective or elite master’s-degree program. While many systems continue to regard the master’s as the main university degree, the nature of the first three years has clearly changed in its new bachelor’s habitat, based on the European University Association trends studies report. Most often, staff-intensive research training has been restricted to the master’s level, although some research universities are attempting to reverse such trends, as the League of European Research Universities reports. Wherever bachelor’s-degree education is accessible for all high school diploma holders, while master’s programs may select their students to fit their profiles, one may observe early signals of mass and elite dimensions of the system. Some less-resourced national systems (such as Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic) already simply allow the most-qualified students to continue into master’s programs. Overall, cost pressures and labor-market reactions to the new degrees are likely to determine whether bachelor’s degrees will become the main degree at least in some fields. Effects at the Institutional Level Crosscutting. The Bologna reforms also often led to attempts to dissolve the vertical boundaries that cut through many continental European universities, resulting in incentives to foster interdisciplinary programs or research. Especially at the new master’s level, such new interfaces were sought and institutionalized. Another trend involves support for new interdisciplinary centers or doctoral-level schools within and between institutions, especially in Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries. Stakeholders. Finally, stakeholder influence, which has been associated with the relevance agenda of the Bologna reforms, has been strengthened not only through widespread new governance structures—such as institutional boards (e.g., in Austria, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands) and institutionalized advisory boards at program levels. While the direct influence of external stakeholders still raises skepticism at most traditional (self-declared science- or scholarship-driven) institutions, consulting relevant outside partners on program orientation is more widely accepted among academics from all types of institutions now, as recent studies show. Conclusion [Online] Available: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/Number57/p9_Reichert.htm
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