Michael D. Higgins
Ceist:68 Mr. M. Higgins asked the Minister for Education and Science the plans his Department has to ensure the compliance of Irish third level institutions with the Bologna Declaration. [17120/01]
Written Answers. - Bologna Declaration.
The Bologna Declaration is a commitment by the initial 29 signatory countries to the establishment of a European area of higher education and to the promotion of the European system of higher education in a global context.
A set of objectives was drawn up and agreed by the signatories. These objectives include: adopting a two cycle system, a system of easily readable and comparable degrees; promoting systems of credit accumulation and transfer; promoting mobility; promoting co-operation in quality assurance; and promoting the European dimension in higher education.
European Ministers in charge of higher education, representing 32 signatories, met in Prague on 18 and 19 May to review the progress achieved in relation to the Bologna Declaration and to set directions and priorities for the coming years of the process. Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to the objective of establishing the European higher education area by 2010.
The Ministers said efforts to promote mobility must be continued to enable students, teachers, researchers and administrative staff to benefit from the richness of the European higher education area, including its democratic values, diversity of cultures and languages and the diversity of its higher education.
The Ministers committed themselves to continue their co-operation, based on the objectives set out in the Bologna Declaration, building on the similarities and benefiting from the differences between cultures, languages and national systems, and drawing on all possibilities of intergovernmental co-operation and the ongoing dialogue with European universities and other higher education institutions and student organisations, as well as the Community programmes.
The twin principles of institutional autonomy and diversity emphasised in the Bologna Declaration and the Prague Communiqué are well developed in Ireland, where our higher education institutions will, along with their European counterparts, be active participants in the achievements of the broad objectives of the declaration. Our higher and further education system is based on the binary system with complementary roles for the university and technological sectors. The diversity of institutions and the separate missions of the two broad sectors will be maintained to ensure maximum flexibility and response to the needs of students and the wide variety of social and economic requirements.
I have established a steering group, representative of all the relevant interests in relation to the progressing of the Bologna Declaration objectives. In that context, a national conference on the Bologna Declaration was held on 9 May 2001. It involved all partners in higher education and the wider social partnership.
The steering group will meet again shortly to review the outcome of the Prague meeting of 18 and 19 May and the national conference.
The objectives of the Bologna Declaration coincide with the Government's recent establishment of the National Qualifications Authority, which is charged with the development of the national framework of qualifications and which will, in turn, have responsibility for the development of the international linkages so vital to the promotion of mobility – a key objective of the Bologna Declaration.