Academic Issues

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Academic Issues

Recognition of Qualifications

Recognition is key to ensure greater student and worker mobility by ensuring that a degree taken in one country is recognised in other country. This links in with the Bologna Declaration's aim of "easily readible and comparible degrees", some of the tools that aid recognition are ECTS and Diploma Supplement.
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Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance is an ongoing process that ensures the delivery of agreed standards. These agreed standards should make sure every educational institution of which the quality is assured has the potential ability to achieve a high quality of content. Quality Assurance must not to be confused with accreditation. The goal of Quality Assurance is to improve education and therefore it should take place on all levels (course, faculty and institution).

Qualification Frameworks

The Bologna Declaration stated that in order to establish the European Higher Education Area, work should be started on (among other things):
Easily readable and comparable degrees, also through the implementation of the Diploma Supplement;Adoption of a system; Essentially based on two main cycles: undergraduate and graduate levels in all countries;
Establishment of a system of credits – such as in the ECTS system – as a proper means of promoting the most widespread student mobility.

Joint Degrees

Within the Bologna Process there has been the call for the establishment of recognised joint degrees to promote the European Dimension in Higher Education and graduate employability. Joint study programmes could provide an instrument for giving students the chance to gain academic and cultural experience abroad and Higher Education Institutions an opportunity to co-operate.
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European Credit Transfer System

The European Credit Transfer system (ECTS) was introduced as a tool within the framework of the ERASMUS/SOCRATES programme between 1988 and 1995. It was aimed that this would facilitate the recognition of the courses for these exchange students when returning home to their own institution. However, under the framework of the Bologna Process it became a tool that should be used for all students, and not only for the purposes of recognition. It should however be noted that the implementation of ECTS has been fairly problematic in most countries. The current discussion surrounding the extension of ECTS from purely a transfer to an accumulation system as well has also posed new challenges.

Diploma Supplement

The Diploma Supplement is an initiative by the European Commission to create transparency between degrees across Europe by outlining the skills/competencies and more indepth information about the student rather than just the grade of the degree. This initative stems from the Bologna Declaration's aim of "easily readible and comparible degrees" in order to improve international transparency and to facilite academic and professional recognition of qualifications (diplomas, degrees, certificates etc). It is also closely linked to the issue of recognition of qualifications.