fading of occupational orientation, the emergence of social and ethical dimensions of learning, and the passage from well-defined contexts and problems to more fluid and dynamic contexts and problems.
The 46 countries of the EHEA have agreed to standards with respect to these learning outcomes that describe each degree cycle, and educational institutions within that region have agreed that they now have a responsibility to demonstrate that their graduating students have indeed attained the desired levels of learning. How they demonstrate it is largely left up to the institutions, but what they need to demonstrate now is commonly accepted. In many cases, nations are moving to set up national qualification frameworks that define how this Framework for Qualifications should be demonstrated nationally to best preserve particular historic and cultural aspects of their higher education systems. In any case, leaving the “how” up to individual institutions and countries has lead to a great deal of creative thinking about outcome measurements.
The challenge then moves to specifying expectations for student learning outcomes for specific degrees (Tuning Project), e.g BA in physics, MS in history. Here, again, the EHEA is advancing. The discussions are understandably difficult, and studies of results thus far are mixed. However, step-by-step advances are being made, leaving the countries involved (which now includes more than the EHEA) with a much clearer understanding than exists in other countries of what needs to be learned in specific fields in the context of today’s realities.
A particularly important component of all of this is the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), started earlier under ERASMUS, but refined and extended for Bologna. A particularly clear and succinct definition of ECTS can be found on the website of Tilburg University:
The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System is a student-centred system based on the student workload required to achieve the objectives of a programme, objectives preferably specified in terms of the learning outcomes and competences to be acquired.
The Bologna scheme calls for all courses to be award ECTS credits, and that these credits be accepted freely around the region in order to facilitate student movement. At present, credits are closely tied to the average time theoretically required to achieve the desired learning outcomes and competencies, rather than any demonstration of achievement. Obviously, the system would be more robust if the credits related to demonstration of actual achievement of some base level of learning outcomes and competencies, but thus far there are no identified methods to do this uniformly.
All of this can be viewed from the perspective of defining modules of “production” in the educational cycle. This fits one common model of modular production in which input/output characteristics of the module are specified precisely by the central design (Bologna), with considerable flexibility being given to the module producers (the institutions of EHEA) in how those characteristics are realized.
Importantly, however, the customer (the student) is also part of the production process, and this changes the power relationships of production considerably. In the industrial model, it is the “producer” of the finished product who picks the outsourcing partners who will produce modules that go into the finished product. In the Bologna case, within wide limits, the customer decides where to get the various modules that in the end will result in the degree “product”. This reversal of power positions may provide considerable challenges, and opportunities, to universities in the future.
The Bologna Process is a very bold experiment that has the potential to change higher education in ways probably not envisaged by its creators. The very elements that enable and encourage movement about the EHEA, if successful, are those that could open up globalization of higher education generally. One of the greatest obstacles to greater globalization at the moment is the inability to 