Newsletter 23
06 November 2002
Contents
On 19 September 2002, the Egide Administrative Council re-elected its
current President, Jean Nemo, for a new 3-years mandate. The Secretariat
would like to use the opportunity to congratulate him on his re-election,
and to wish him luck for the task of leading this strong organisation,
which has grown so impressively in recent years, yet to further horizons.
http://www.egide.asso.fr/index.uk.html
On 23 October 2002, Högskoleverket celebrated the tenth anniversary of
their Newsletter. The Secretariat would like to congratulate
Högskoleverket and, in particular, the Newsletter’s editor, Torsten
Kälvemark, on this excellent information tool. Many happy returns!
http://www.hsv.se/sv/iwt/startpage/startpage.jsp?home=location
On 7 October 2002, the European Commission approved, on the initiative
of Commisioners Antonio Vitorino (Justice and Home Affairs) and Viviane
Reding (Education and Culture), a proposal for a directive on the entry
and residence conditions for third-country nationals for the purpose of
study, vocational training and voluntary activity. This proposal
complements initiatives already put forward on the entry for the purposes
of employment and family reunion. The directive proposal, in the
preparatory phase of which DG Justice and Home Affairs also consulted ACA
and its members, is intended to help increase the attractiveness of Europe
for third-country nationals. Viviane Reding stated: “If we want to make
Europe a centre of excellence when it comes to the knowledge-based
economy, our universities need to be able to attract moare third-country
students…The proposal for a directive adopted today by the Commission is
a significant instrument which will help us attain this objective…”.
It remains to be seen how the initiative will be received by the
Council, and to which member state policies, which appear to have gotten
more restrictive in the near past, will develop in parallel with this
course.
http://www.europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/02/1437|0|RAPID&lg=EN;
http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/cgint.exe/2234993-965?targ=1&204&OIDN=1504032
On 4 November 2002, the European Commission (DG EAC) launched a
large-scale public consultation on the “future development the European
Union education, training and youth programmes”. The consultation
addresses a wide range of organisations and individuals with an interest
in EU education and training policy, who can submit their reactions until
28 February 2003. These opinions will inform the Commission’s proposal
for programmes and policies from the end of 2006 onwards, when the present
phase of programmes such as Socrates, Leonardo, TEMPUS, and Youth will run
out. The Commission intends to submit its formal proposals to the Council
(and Parliament) in the course of the year 2004 at the latest.
The consultation document is remarkable for its clarity and precision.
In its first part, it presents the record of the programmes so far,
highlighting successes as well as remaining difficulties. The latter
section invites opinions, particularly on which “types of action” the
Union should concentrate after 2006, on the “geographical coverage” of
Union programmes (eligible countries), and on issues of programme “design
and organisation”.
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/newprogconsult/index.html
Official document : http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/newprogconsult/consult_en.pdf
Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Education and Culture, is an
optimistic woman. In the week preceding the celebration of the one
millionth Erasmus student, she stated her intention to increase the number
of Erasmus student grantees to two million by 2007 and three million by
2010, without cutting the “value” of the grants. Ms. Reding hopes that
this aim can be realized by cofunding coming from the corporate sector, as
well as by the introduction, in all European countries, of the “exportability”
of national grant and loan schemes. Mrs Reding also urges the universities
to expand distance learning provision via the Internet and to improve
language teaching offered to students who participate in the mobility
programme.
http://www.europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/02/1525|0|RAPID&lg=en&display=
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/erasmus/photogallery_en.html
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/erasmus/million/event_en.html
The Commission is inviting applications with a view to constituting a
list of experts to assess proposals and carry out other activities in the
framework of TEMPUS III, the trans-European cooperation scheme in higher
education. Applicants may apply online using the electronic application
form, or the application form in Word format at the following address:
http://www.etf.eu.int/tempus.nsf
During a colloquium on “The University’s role in the European Space
of Knowledge”, which took place in Milano on 21 October 2002, the
European Commissioner for research, Philippe Busquin, pointed out that the
role played by universities through research, education, innovation and
information technologies in achieving the European economy and society of
knowledge should be enhanced. Mr Busquin also stressed the importance of
concertation of innovative processes underway in Europe to transform
education (European Higher Education Area) and research (European Research
Area).
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=SPEECH/02/504|0|RAPID&lg=FR&display=
http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/busquin/new_en.html
http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/iscp/index_en.html
On 28th October 2002, Mr Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Chairman of the
Praesidium of the European Convention, presented a preliminary Draft
Constitutional Treaty. This document presents a skeletal outline for a
future Constitution. A new outline will be submitted to governments by
beginning 2003 and a final draft Constitution would then be expected by
summer 2003. The new EU provided for by this outline will built on a “federal
basis” including a “common defence policy to defend and promote the
Union’s values”. The draft also provides for direct European taxation
by stating that “the Union budget is fully financed by own resources”.
Citizens would enjoy a “dual citizenship, national and European” and
people would be “free to use either the one of the other”. “Integrationists”
criticised the proposal as “inter-governmental”, by too much
strengthening the role of the Council.
As is the case today, some competences would be exclusive Union
competence, in others areas there would be a shared competence between the
Union and the members states, and a third set of fields would be under the
exclusive sovereignty of the member states. The areas of culture,
education, professional training and youth are proposed to be in the
second category, where the Union may take action to support member states’
policies (cf. part two on Union policies and their implementation: A5 IV
and V). This would leave competences in the educational field basically
what they are today.
Official document :http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/sessPlen/00369.en2.PDF
http://ue.eu.int/pressdata/FR/conveur/73085.PDF
http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?sid=18&aid=8183
http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?sid=9&aid=8161
http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3214--296038-,00.html
In the first selection round of the new Asia-Link Programme, 12 project
proposals have been awarded grant support in the area of human resource
development and curriculum development. A total of 52 European and Asian
higher education institutions are involved in the selected projects. The
European Commission’s co-financing amounts to about EUR 3.4 million,
with an average grant size of nearly EUR 270.000 and an average EC
contribution of 72.5 %. The funded projects cover a variety of subject
areas relevant to EU-Asia economic co-operation such as food science and
technology, studies, gender issues, and language and society.The list of
funded projects can be found under: http://europa.eu.int/comm/europeaid/projects/asia-link/asia-link_update_200210_en.pdf
Selection of projects submitted in the second call for proposals
(deadline: 24 October 2002) will take place in November 2002. The grants
are to be awarded by the end of the year. There will be two calls for
proposals in 2003, with a first deadline in April 2003 and a second one at
the end of September. In 2004, two last calls for proposals are scheduled
for April and September.
The new ASEAN-EU University Network Programme is due to publish a first
call for proposals in November 2002, with an application deadline in March
2003.The application documents will be made available in on the AUNP
website:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/europeaid/projects/aunp/apply_en.htm
Social development is included in all National Indicative Programmes
(NIPs) 2002-2004 which form the framework of EU bilateral co-operation
with Mediterranean Partners. The EU provides financial and technical
support in fields as diverse as health, education (Tempus-Meda), labour
market (vocational training), local development and social protection.
Equality between women and men and promoting civil society are also at the
forefront. Social aspects, already featured in the Barcelona Declaration
as key components of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership’s 3rd chapter,
play an essential role for the development of society in Mediterranean
Partners and are a prerequisite for economic development. Thus the
European Union involvement in areas like education, vocational training,
free access to the information society and to new information
technologies, in developing and transition countries, should remain
substantial.See the Euromed special feature : http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/w44/6.pdf
The Arab-European Universities Association (AEUA) was launched on 26
and 27 October 2002 at a meeting in Cairo. Twenty-five European university
leaders – from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain,
Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Turkey and Yougoslavia -
met 35 of their Arab counterparts - from Egypt, the Emirates, Lebanon,
Oman, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Yemen - with the support of the Lutfia
Rabbani Foundation in the Hague, a structure founded under Dutch law in
2000 under the sponsorship of the CRE, now EUA, and of the Association of
Arab Universities (AARU). The network is steered by a Board of Directors
with three permanent members representing the Rabbani Foundation (Dr Jan
Donner, President of the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam), the EAU
(Dr Andris Barblan, former Secretary General) and the AARU (Dr Marwan
Kamal, Secretary General) and four invited members. The main activities of
the AEUA are to enhance cooperation between the two regions by setting up
a clearing-house for staff and student exchange, to conduct capacity
building workshops on institutional self-evaluation, and to make use of EU
programmes such as Tempus-Meda or the future Erasmus World.More info : http://www.unige.ch/eua/
The Scottish Parliament announced an overhaul of further and higher
education in a report that makes key recommendations to establish a “fundamental
right” to lifelong learning for all Scottish citizens with the aim to
create a culture of lifelong learning to address skills shortages. This
includes a combination of higher and further education funding to create
one tertiary sector system, financial support to part-time and low-income
learners, widening access to post-18 learning (including in the
workplace), a business learning account which would give companies an
agreed amount of money for investment. Ministers will debate the report on
27th November 2002.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/story/0,9860,821056,00.html
Two and a half years after pledging to achieve education for all by
2015, more than 70 countries - on present trends - will not make it. This
is the stern warning from the 2002 Education for All Global Monitoring
Report which will be launched at a press conference organized by UNESCO in
London on 13th November. The report will be presented by the British
education and development expert, Prof. Christopher Colclough.
http://www.unesco.org/bpi/eng/unescopress/2002/02-avis50e.shtml
On 7th October, Mr Luc Ferry, Minister of Education, presented a new
organization of degrees in higher education which establishes a 3-level
structure : licence (3 years), master (5 years) and doctorate (8 years) as
well as the establishment of the ECTS system, both aimed at enhancing
students mobility in Europe. First experiments began in October this year
in three pilot universities, to be extended to half universities in 2004
and to all of them by 2006. This reform is part of the European
harmonization process started in 1998 by Claude Allègre and its objective
is to bring France close to the pattern already applied in the rest of
Europe.
Further to enhancing students exchanges and European harmonization,
this reform will certainly have a drastic impact on educational practices
and curricular reform in universities. ECTS credits (60 per year) system
will provide for more flexibility with the organisation of courses in
semesters and thus for personalized cursus.
http://www.lemonde.fr/recherche_articleweb/1,9687,293222,00.html
http://www.education.gouv.fr/presse/2002/rentreesupdp.htm
During the EAU/Swiss Confederation Conference held on 11 and 12 October
2002 at the ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Zürich, the
330 participants confirmed Europe’s universities’ commitment to
mainstreaming ECTS as a credit transfer and accumulation system for the
emerging European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The Conference
demonstrated widespread support for the increased development of ECTS not
only as a transfer system but as an accumulation system in the context of
the Bologna process. Conference participants underlined the following ECTS
key principles: the definition of credits should take account of student
workload and learning outcomes, ECTS is based upon the convention that 60
credits represent the national workload of a full-time student in one
year, individual institutions should be able to use their own discretion
and judgment in dealing with credits.Conference participants also defined
areas for further discussion at the “Graz Convention of Higher Education
Institutions” in May 2003.
http://www.unige.ch/eua/
http://www.ects-conference.ethz.ch/index.asp
ISBN 9264198903, OECD Code 892002041P1
Also available as an E-book in PDF format:
http://oecdpublications.gfi-nb.com/cgi-bin/OECDBookShop.store
More info on : http://www.oecd.org/EN/links_abstract/0,,EN-links_abstract-604-5-no-no-1239-604,00,00.html
Across OECD countries, governments are seeking policies to make
education more effective while searching for additional resources to meet
the increasing demand for education. The OECD education indicators enable
countries to see themselves in the light of other countries' performance.
The 2002 edition of Education at a Glance -- OECD Indicators provides a
rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators. The indicators
represent the consensus of professional thinking on how to measure the
current state of education internationally. They provide information on
the output of educational institutions and the impact of learning, the
policy levers that shape educational outcomes and how education systems
operate and evolve, and the human and financial resources invested in
education. The thematic organisation of the volume and the background
information accompanying the tables and charts make this publication a
valuable resource for anyone interested in analysing education systems
across countries. The focus of this year's edition of Education at a
Glance is on the quality of learning outcomes and the policy levers that
shape these outcomes. This includes a comparative picture of student
performance in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy as well as of
students’ civic engagement and attitudes. The picture is not limited to
national performance levels, but also examines questions of equity in
learning outcomes and opportunities as well as the broader private and
social returns that accrue to investments in education. New information on
student learning conditions, including the learning climate in the
classroom and the use of information technology in education as well as on
teacher working conditions provide a better understanding of key
determinants of educational success. Finally, for many indicators, a
significantly larger number of OECD countries are now providing data.
Through the World Education Indicators programme, a wide range of
non-member countries have also contributed to this year’s edition of
Education at a Glance, extending the coverage of some of the indicators to
almost two-thirds of the world population.
Cedefop reference series 33 - ISSN 1608-7089, ISBN 92-896-0104-3.
Available in German (DE), English (EN) and Spanish (ES).
http://publications.eu.int/flash/nfeu_en.htm#FL0
The European Commission's belief is that all citizens of the European
Union, including those with limited lifelong learning opportunities, such
as low-skilled workers, should have access to lifelong learning. In its
work programme, Cedefop, the European Centre for the Development of
Vocational Training, assisted the European Commission in analysing
vocational training and disseminating innovative vocational training
practices. In particular, the project focused on regional and national
model initiatives, as well as European projects and partnerships with high
innovation potential. This report presents innovative training initiatives
to improve the integration of low-skilled workers into lifelong learning.
Furthermore, the mobility to other regions and countries and the entire
European Union is analysed. A comparison is made between northern and
central European States (including smaller countries like Luxembourg and
Liechtenstein) and Mediterranean nations. The innovative approaches and
best practice models referred to in this report are intended to promote
the integration of low-skilled young people and low-skilled workers in
other age groups. The publication also reports on the physically disabled
and socially marginalised. The report is intended to assist
decision-makers and vocational training researchers to improve the
integration of low-skilled workers into European labour markets and
lifelong learning.
29-30 November 2002
Gender Equality in the Socrates Programme
Danubius Thermal Hotel Margitsziget, Budapest, Hungary
http://www.tpf.iif.hu/newsite/tka/gender.htm or contact Ms. Judit Gossler gossler@tpf.hu
or Ms. Melinda Szi szi@tpf.hu
17 February 2003
UK Council for Graduate Education conference: “Impact of Government
policy on Graduate education”
Regent’s College, London http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/events.html
17-18 February 2003
Seminar on the “Social Dimension of Higher Education Area"
Athens, Greece
more info from Executive Committee of ESIB (The National Union of
Students in Europe) at ec2002@esib.org
or from ESIB's Bologna Process Committee at bpc@esib.org
http://www.esib.org/
12-14 March 2003
UK Council for Graduate Education conference: “Post-graduate
education: European Futures”
Tara Copthorne Hotel, Kensington, London.http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/events.html
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