Globalization and Education (original) (raw)

2013, Globalization and Education

The Bologna declaration opened and off ered education reform, formalized with the Bologna declaration in 1999, and which was to a large extent initiated by employers. Their request was, on the unique European market, the future candidates for the job to be educated in a standard way so the big European companies would apply the same systems of recruitment, selection and employment in diff erent countries. Their request also was directed towards the reform of the curriculum in a manner of greater applicability. The education system was required during the education to convey to the students no only academic knowledge, but practical skills as well and to develop their abilities during education so they can from the fi rst day of their employment to start with the performance of some tasks. The idea itself, although declaratively broadly accepted, met series of diff erent resistances. In the adaptation of the curricula, the establishments often manifested the following failures: the formal approach, procrastination, partial application of some of the principles, declarative acceptance. The adaptation to the needs of the employers caused maybe the greatest resistances. And what was the most important for the employers, the integration of theoretical knowledge and practical concepts, the universities have often accepted only formally. ' We are in a new economic order. Who will survive, and who will go down?' A.M. Naik, L&T

20 Years of the Bologna Declaration – a Literature Review on the Globalisation of Higher Education Reforms

EDULEARN19 Proceedings, 2019

One of the flagships of the Bologna declaration (1999), and consequently of the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), was the aim of increasing (students and staff) mobility, comparability and intergovernmental and inter-institutional cooperation in order to promote the internationalization of European higher education and the modernization of higher education institutions (HEI). However, and although the literature referring to the Bologna process has been fruitful, it is still challenging to find consensus on how these processes, (staff) mobility, intergovernmental and institutional cooperation, have been developing and on its impact on the internationalization, globalization and even modernization of higher education. Moreover, despite these buzzwords, often used interchangeably, have been addressed in the literature, there are several interpretations on their meaning. This paper attempts to enrich this discussion through a systematic literature review, showing h...

The Bologna Project: The End of Cultural Differences? (2007; reviewed in: Europaeum IV/2007)

The process of globalization as we perceive it today stems from world-wide efforts to re-structure forms of communication in our professional world towards a greater ‘economization’, a world which increasingly is interpreted as a market without borders. Educational reforms, like other sectors of society, have been drawn into such developments. The most visible reform in this aspect is the so-called Bologna Process, a huge enterprise initiated by European Union member states aimed at accommodating its 4000 institutions of higher education to the demands of a globalizing world. The innovations focus on the creation of a common European area of higher education, including the harmonization and mutual acknowledgment of credits as well as the promotion of mobility among faculty and students. Major driving forces behind the reforms are: rising unemployment rates, slowing economic growth rates, and an envisaged increase in competitiveness, on the global education market, particularly with US universities. They derive from a political, rather than an academic agenda, and this agenda is slowly invading the curricula of European universities to the detriment of cultural differences that are - or were - manifested in the different learning and teaching traditions of universities and nations. In this paper I claim that the political and administrative measures designed to implement the Bologna reform concept lead to a further erosion of particular intellectual ideas which have been the guiding principles of curricula structures and teaching/learning methods for many successful European universities for centuries. The central ideas concerning the nature and function of universities, with which we are dealing in this essay, are named after the German scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt, but in fact represent also thoughts of others scholars at his time, such as – to name the most prominent ones - I. Kant, Fr. J. W. Schelling, Fr. D. Schleiermacher, J. G. Fichte, and others. In general, they all identify the essential role of universities for both teachers and students not only in relation to the acquisition and teaching of knowledge, but also with the idea that a better understanding of sciences and their objects are of both educational and cultural importance, which would, in the long run, benefit their (German) nation. They emphasize – to some extent not without metaphysical assumptions - the intrinsic connection between the studying of sciences, and the development of the students’ characters and personalities. It would seem, however, that such past concerns and functions are being replaced by economical considerations in the name of globalization where business practices are becoming standard parameters for the design of reforms in the field of higher education. The voice of the humanities, traditionally defending (or contesting) Humboldtian values, is losing relevance. This paper tries to explain why this vast ongoing educational reform process within Europe, while bringing necessary changes with it, is to be regarded with some caution.

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