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April 01, 2008, 09:15 AM ET
Europe and Higher-Ed. Reform -- Lessons for the U.S.
This May the European Union will begin planning for a second decade of purposeful higher education reform. Dubbed the Bologna Process in honor of the Italian city where, in 1999, the Ministers of Education from 29 European countries defined a common reform agenda, the Bologna Process has gone a long way towards creating commonality and interchangeability among and between Europe’s competing systems of higher education. What began slowly, almost haltingly is now being celebrated as a remarkable achievement in multi-national cooperation and reform — leading me, at least, to ask, “What did the Europeans know that those of us who served on the Spellings Commission did not?”
At least four characteristics of the Bologna Process are worth noting in answer to that question.
First it was conceived at the outset as a multi-year process. No need to hurry. No need to try to fix everything is a single year of frantic activity.
Second, it was a process explicitly linking four sets of key actors: Ministers of Education, university leaders, European Union bureaucrats, and policy wonks. The latter helped define the issues and shape the agenda. The EU bureaucracy staffed the meetings, making sure that schedules were kept and deliverables delivered. University leaders served as much-needed brakes, making sure that what the policy wonks proposed had institutional traction. The Ministers of Education provided the political muscle.
Third, rhetorical excesses were kept to a minimum. The underlying idea was to support and extend the value of the continent’s universities rather than hold them up to public scrutiny.
Fourth, it was a disciplined and focused process. A limited number of goals were set with clear benchmarks leading to verifiable implementations.
If nothing else it makes for an interesting parlor game to speculate whether a Bologna-like template might have resulted in more reform of U.S. higher education than resulted from the work of the Spellings Commission.
More on Friday …
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