Brussels, 24/02/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 23 February, the European Parliament education and culture committee held a public hearing on European universities, forming part of the work on the draft report by Pál Schmitt (EPP, Hungary), “University-Business Dialogue: a new partnership for the modernisation of Europe's universities”. Mobility, excellence, autonomy, openness, and lifelong learning were the watchwords of the experts' speeches. As highlighted by the report from Deloitte, “Further Developing the University-Business Dialogue”, presented by two of the company's experts, the European Union is banking on knowledge and innovation to move back into growth, as is borne out by the Lisbon strategy, the new EU2020 strategy and the Commission's “new skills for new jobs” initiative.
Today more than ever, universities cannot be closed off from the world, said Doina Carp, Director of the National Centre for Staff Teaching in Pre-University Education, Romania. While the main tasks of universities remain education and research, nowadays they must take on board a new parameter, innovation, and develop entrepreneurship, she said. Noting that European universities remain organised at regional and national levels, she hailed the Bologna Process which tries to harmonise diversity into a coherent and compatible system, essential in the current globalisation process. New challenges are being faced in a deeply changing environment, which require universities to adapt and change. Today more than ever, teachers need to be well trained, not only to provide pupils with the teaching they have a right to expect in the 21st century, but also to develop young people's desire to learn. Professor Róbert Gábriel, Rector of the University of Pécs in Hungary, said that universities had to be flexible, autonomous, use cutting edge technologies and better respond to the needs of society. He noted an imbalance between demand in the economic world, which is constantly seeking scientific and technical graduates, and supply by universities, which produce especially social science graduates. Universities also face another problem: credit transfer. Despite the European system that has been put in place, which should make it easier for qualifications to be recognised from one member state to another, there is, in fact, no recognition, hindering student mobility. Sir Howard Newby, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, highlighted the lack of resources in universities to overtake their increasingly complex task. He argued for increased university autonomy so that they can make the best choices - a crucial issue, given the additional challenges posed by globalisation, where each country, and even continent, is trying to attract and retain the most talented students. Florian Kaiser, a member of the Executive Committee of the German Free Union of Student Bodies, shed a different light on the discussion. He said that the Bologna Process was far from being effective: there was still elitism, there was passing the bucket on responsibilities between the various actors, mobility was limited even within the same faculties, modules offered were too long and there was a problem with the recognition of these modules from one member state to another. As for lifelong learning, the aim was ambitious and there were still too many obstacles for it to become a reality, he argued.
The European Union was clearly targeting education as the response to the economic crisis: it is at the heart of the EU 2020 strategy, and there had to be excellence at all levels, stated the European Commission representative. While reform had progressed at differing speeds in the countries taking part in the Bologna Process, the overall situation had improved, he said. The urgent problem that had to be resolved was the too great fragmentation which still existed between the various European systems, which were, incidentally, too heavily regulated and under-funded. A further problem was mobility, something that was far from having been achieved and which had to be increased. Three major reforms were needed if higher education in Europe was to be modernised efficiently: the first was in terms of employability (curricula more in line with labour market demands), the second was about governance (more autonomy for universities), and the third was on funding (more funding from different sources). In 2011, a new communication will be published on modernising universities. It will carry on from where the 2006 communication left off, the Commission said
A question-and-answer session followed the speeches. MEP Milan Zver (EPP, Slovenia) drew attention to a further perceptible problem in Europe: that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were lagging behind in the reform of universities. Gianni Vattimo (ALDE, Italy) said he was despondent because of the recurrent problems in universities. He said that governments continued to reduce education and research spending. Petra Kammerevert (S&D, Germany) said the Bologna objectives had not been reached and Europe had to give greater thought to what was to be done to achieve them. (I.L./transl.rt)