Педагогические науки/2.Проблемы подготовки специалистов

Golub T. P.

National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”

Qualifications Framework for the European Higher Education Area: German Background

In the processes of globalization and internationalization, the Federal Government of Germany promotes the opportunities and potential they offer by introducing initiatives that will provide political and programmatic support which protects German national interests, allows Germany to make its mark on international framework conditions. The Federal Government of Germany is especially interested in supporting framework conditions that provide market access and enable international networking for research collaborations. The international visibility of science and research potential of Germany is being increased by means of multilateral initiatives, the aim of which is to accelerate the implementation of national innovation goals by establishing global partnerships and improving the international links [1].

In June 1999, 31 European ministers responsible for higher education from 29 countries signed the Bologna Declaration – the document which set in motion the Bologna Process – an intergovernmental process “managed” by the Bologna Follow-Up Group consisting of representatives of the signatory countries and observers who are mainly representative organisations of the stakeholders (institutions, students, teachers, professional field), intended to create the European Higher Education Area.

The creation of a coherent European Higher Education Area is a mean to improve the international competitiveness and attractiveness of European higher education in the world, to ensure mobility and employability. Its objectives are:

- adoption of comparable degrees system, Diploma Supplement implementation;

- adoption of a system essentially based on two main cycles, undergraduate and graduate (access to the second cycle shall require successful completion of first cycle studies, lasting a minimum of three years); 

- establishment of a system of credits as a proper means of promoting the most widespread student mobility; 

- promotion of mobility by overcoming obstacles to the effective exercise of free movement;

- promotion of European co-operation in quality assurance with a view to developing comparable criteria and methodologies; 

- promotion of the necessary European dimensions in higher education, with regards to curricular development, inter-institutional co-operation, mobility schemes and integrated programmes of study, training and research [2].

One of the most important measures in the academic reforms being carried out under the Bologna Process is the development and use of qualifications frameworks. At the conference of ministers responsible for higher education held in Berlin in 2003, the ministers of the Bologna signatory states agreed to draw up a European Qualifications Framework and committed themselves to developing national qualifications frameworks that would correspond with the European frameworks.

At the conference in Bergen in 2005, the ministers marked an important milestone on the way to creating the European Higher Education Area and adopted the "Qualifications Framework for the European Higher Education Area" which contributes fundamentally to achieving the goals of the Bologna Process in respects:

1. It describes the qualifications gained at Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral level in respect of achievement level, outcomes, competences, profile, and in initial levels of the student workload. It is a central instrument for achieving the objectives of the Bologna Process – creating a system of comprehensible and comparable degrees.

2. It makes it possible to compare national qualifications frameworks with each other. The structure created with an overarching "Qualifications Framework for the European Higher Education Area" and the national qualifications frameworks that relate to this therefore promote: International transparency (by describing academic degrees with correlating concepts that in turn make it easier to understand the degrees), International recognition of academic degrees (comprehensibility of degrees and common concepts in the description of competences form the basis for universities being able to recognize and credit academic performance), that are the basic prerequisites for one of the central goals of the Bologna Process – the International mobility of students.

These goals can only be achieved if the qualifications framework at European level is able to find counterparts at the level of the national higher education systems.

The Standing Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Lander of the FRG took the initiative after the Bologna Conference held in Berlin in 2003 to initiate the development of a Qualifications framework for German Higher Education Qualifications. To implement this assignment, the national working group on the "Continuation of the Bologna Process", made up of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Lander of the FRG, the German Rectors' Conference, the German Student Services Organisation, the German Accreditation Council, the German Academic Exchange Service, and representatives of the students, trade unions and employers appointed the working group in December 2003, which, with the participation of other experts, produced a draft document on a Qualifications Framework for German Higher Education Qualifications which was adopted in spring 2005 and was presented to the Bologna Follow-up Conference.

As a consequence of the report on Report from the Bologna-Working Group on Qualifications Frameworks adopted at the 2007 Bologna Conference in London, the national Bologna Working Group in March 2008 officially initiated the process to verify the compatibility of the Qualifications Framework for German Higher Education Qualifications with the "Qualifications Framework for the European Higher Education Area".

References:

1. International organizations and programmes // Electronic resource : http://www.bmbf.de/en/6441.php.

2. Europe 2020: what are the implications of Europe’s new economic strategy for global higher ed & research? // Electronic resource : http://www.qrossroads.eu/european-higher-education-area.