I would like to know the opinion of academic society about changes caused by Bologna Process and creation of European Higher Education Area. Are the HE systems better thanks to it? Do we have better quality in higher education, comparable structure of studies, clear qualification frameworks? What are advantages for students and academic staff comming from EHEA? Is the implementation succesful?
In Germany they took the diplom course, splitted it after three years in bachelor and master and added softskills and a bachelor thesis to it. Now students have to do more than before. To ensure that the ECTS are not lying above the expected points, they reduced the given amount but not the real working load.
Than at some point a foreigner might be interested to study in Germany. And I can tell you, it won't be easy for him or her. A lot of other courses at foreign universities are expected to be inferiour to the domicilied courses. That's a pity because the bologna process stated that masters and bachelors should be on a comparable scope. But they are not. E.g. I passed my MPhys (Hons) in Scotland. There is a note (similar to a law) in Germany that states that this is a master which is comparable to a Diplom of a Fachhochschule. In the end there is no chance I can do a phd in Germany with this degree. Nevertheless I passed my German Diplom at a university as well and now there is no more problem ...
On the other hand, professors have to reflect what they are teaching skillwise to write the handbooks of the modules. Especially in physics they had not cared before. So at least a reflective mind set was forced on.
And somehow they always cheat their ways through to let what has always been there to stay that way. E.g. it was usual in physics in Germany to work on a thesis for one year. A master thesis should be just 6 months. So they introduced two modules "specialising phase" and "introduction into scientific working", each taking 3 months, so in the end they are back at one year thesis duration.
In the end the students have to work more than to the times of the diplom degree, write more exams and the changes are just superficial. For me, the bologna process in Gemany was no success.
I've just published a book regarding this subject in general - just take a look
Publiczni Niepubliczni. Przełom.
It's based on a study among Education students in 3 cities in Poland at 7 universities.
I recently came across this recent EU publication. It features the Quality & Assurance Standards of Higher Education in a European context.
http://ec.europa.eu/education/library/reports/modernisation_en.pdf
It seems that the more we talk about quality in HE the more we acknowledge that it has become a problem. There is an obvious advantage in point of European or worldwide diploma recognition . But society has not embraced this considerable change as a beneficial one for lack of sufficient previous preparation. Compressing the former 4 years into 3 is still seen in Romania as less consistence, all the more so as relatively few young people are aware of the fact that proper HE education actually consists now of 3+2 years, and not only the first 3 and choose not to enroll for the master programs.
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