Review of Bologna Tools
Before understanding the Bologna tools, it’s important you understand the process as a whole. The Bologna process is aimed at restructuring higher education in Europe by introducing bachelor, doctoral and master’s degrees.
The program was launched in 1999 and is run by the Education Ministers of countries who signed the Bologna declaration. These ministers meet every two years to discuss the objectives and progress.
Basically anyone who fails a degree has absolutely nothing to show for it, they may have studied for years only to fail the final exams. The aim of the Bologna movement is to better graduation rates at European universities.
There are over forty countries participating in this new process which works to achieve some main objectives. These objectives include:
Adopting a system with two cycles (undergraduate / graduate)
Establish a credit system
Adopt readable and comparable degrees
Overcome any legal recognition
Quality Assurance
Promote European higher education
ECTS
ECTS stands for European Credit Transfer System and is the main Bologna tool which is used for promoting academics to and from Europe. The program handles the credit transfers for students who are spending time studying overseas.
The ECTS is based on full time courses and the workload is taken into consideration including laboratory time, exams and lectures, these are then put into credits which are only given once the course is complete.
The credits are broken down as follows:
60 credits is awarded for one full year of education
30 credits is awarded per semester
20 credits is awarded per trimester
This means that a completed bachelor degree can get around 180 to 240 credits, while a master’s degree can get around 300 credits.
The Advantages
The advantages of the Bologna tools is that all students who complete courses will be awarded credits, this offers its own range of benefits from employment to mobility.
The education of students will always be up to date and credits will be given on competencies enhancing the student’s opportunities. Further the bologna tools enable students to enjoy a flexible academic curriculum.
From the universities stand point the education is more student based, the teaching materials are tailored and they orientate the students towards employment. The programs are constantly being improved to ensure that the European higher education is on par with some other countries such as the USA.
Overall
When reading through the Bologna tools it’s easy to see how they are trying to ensure that their students’ academic history is accepted worldwide, enabling them to enjoy employment. At present there are a lot of employment opportunities being taken by foreign nationals who have ample degrees, where the European higher education degrees were not as widely accepted.
Further students who complete the full course without passing don’t have anything to show for it anymore, their credits will act in their favor, proving they completed the course and helping with employment opportunities once again.
There is a fair amount of debate on how long the Bologna tools can be used and whether it is a long term solution, but time will only tell.
An Overview on Europe’s Schooling System
The Europe schools are made into three categories; they are nursery, primary and secondary schools. Children start school from as young as five and work their way up until they are seventeen or eighteen, should they complete their schooling.
Of course like any other schools, children have an opportunity to drop out of school at any stage during their secondary school attendance. Parents who work and choose to apply for logbook loans online to pay for their children’s schooling are not going to allow them to drop out.
Students are required to complete eight compulsory subjects from year one to seven; these include a first language, which is their mother tongue. A foreign language, math, science or biology, history, geography, ethics / religion and physical education.
The reason for these compulsory subjects is that each child gets to experience them and can make a decision from there on their way forward into the world. For aacsb accredited online mba programs and when finding the best online mba programs, you will be required to have completed certain subject, so when in secondary school in Europe it’s important to choose your classes wisely.
Some students prefer to go on and obtain a criminal justice degree online while those that did science may go and work for companies where they can utilize their skills to manufacture anti-aging skin products.
It all starts in those first few years where the schooling system requires students to attend compulsory classes, if you love computers you may go on to work at dreamweaver templates, while those who enjoy business economics and physical education can progress and obtain masters in health administration later on.
Every student in the Europe’s schooling system is given the opportunity to choose their subjects after year seven. By this stage they should have an idea where they want to go in their lives whether it’s making dog collars or providing drug treatment. This way they are able to tailor their schooling curriculum according to their future needs and desires.
Through the compulsory classes, students can get a feel for each course. Once they have an idea of which direction they would like their lives to take, they can tailor their classes at a later stage. Knowing that you intend doing hip replacement recall will not require any mathematical skills, though you may need good first language and maybe some foreign languages, this is why later on schools concentrate on the demands of the students, reducing the amount of classes they have to take and enabling them to tailor them to their specific needs for the future.
Examinations are carried out on a regular basis along with a variety of tests throughout the school year, this helps the teachers evaluate how each student is managing their workload and chosen subjects. Some students find that when they choose their own subjects, it appears that they have taken on too much; obviously something like history requires a lot more study time and effort against physical education or ethics / religion.