Bologna misses 20% mobility objective, but goal remains

Despite the Bologna Process, and its goal of one in five European university students experiencing a period studying abroad during their degrees by 2020 falling widely short of the mark, the continent’s higher education stakeholders remain committed to the value of students physically going abroad during their studies.

Higher education experts reject suggestions that the target, originally set in 1999, to give 20% of European higher education students three months or more studying in another country, has been overtaken by events, lack of commitment by national governments and the creation of the high profile, but much more selective, European University Alliances by the European Union.

The panel of experts was taking part in a webinar meeting on 11 June 2024 organised by the European University Association (EUA) to look at what the indicators say about the Bologna Process following the bi-annual meeting of European higher education ministers in the Albanian capital, Tirana, last month, as part of the Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG) process.

“Inadequate preparation” for Tirana

Writing in last week’s University World News, Sjur Bergan, now an independent higher education expert, but until February 2022 Head of the Council of Europe’s Education Department and their representative on the BFUG, criticised the “inadequate preparation of and political participation at this year’s Ministerial conference”.

He said: “The BFUG, and not least its co-chairs, vice-chair and secretariat, must act differently” to drive the progress towards creating an effective European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and fulfilling the Bologna dream of harmonising the continent’s higher education systems.

One key target, originally set back in 1999, and given a rocket boost at an earlier EHEA ministerial conference, held in Bucharest, Romania in 2012, was to get 20% of the continent’s students to go abroad during their days at university, but the actual total figures for graduates experiencing mobility by 2020 was 8.4%, the webinar heard.

David Crosier, who leads on higher education at Eurydice, the information network based in the European Education and Culture Executive Agency at the European Commission, said progress in student mobility had been much slower than envisaged and the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 can only partly be blamed.

8.4% going abroad

“Unfortunately, we are still a long way off the target, with the total figure being 8.4% across the higher education systems in the European Higher Education Area.

The EHEA covers more countries than just the 27-member states of the European Union, with 49 signed-up, although Russia and Belarus are currently suspended because of the Ukraine war,” he said.

Crosier told the webinar that the overall figure of 8.4% was made up of credit mobility for 4.8% and degree mobility for 3.6%.

Levels of mobility increase with each higher education cycle, with the highest percentage going abroad at the PhD-level, or the third cycle to use the Bologna Process language. Mobility stands at 16% among European doctoral students.

Masters’ students are also more likely to go abroad than undergraduates, with 13.5% taking part in student mobility to another country.

Among first degree students, or those in the first cycle of higher education, the figure was 7.7%.

However, with two-third of Europe’s students in the first cycle, first degree students make up the largest absolute numbers going abroad for part of their studies, he said.

Horia Onita, President the European Students’ Union, said their survey of the national union of students for their ‘Bologna through Student Eyes’ report showed lack of finance was the main barrier to students going abroad.

“Students were also concerned about the lack of student support and healthcare and worried about where they were going to live. The cost of accommodation abroad also put them off,” he said.

Only physical mobility counted

Answering the first question in the webinar, Crosier said the Bologna Follow-Up Group only counted physical mobility, adding that “discussion of virtual mobility is a bit confusing in this context. It is not a bad thing… but should not be confused with physical mobility”.

Talking to University World News after the webinar, Piet Van Hove, president of the European Association for International Education and senior policy advisor for Internationalisation at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, said: “There is always some confusion about mobility statistics. I think the numbers quoted by the Bologna process are strictly per level.”

He said most students in European research universities “spend their bachelor and masters studies in the same university. In those cases, many students aim for one instance of credit mobility, either in the bachelor or the master”, and counting that way gets closer to the 15% figure often used to count students going abroad during their higher education.

23% new EU target

He also noted that the European Council recently watered down a European Commission proposals to increase the target going abroad to 25% of EU higher education students and settled on to 23%, but he questioned how useful targets were anyway.

“Of course, the EHEA includes many countries outside the EU. But I hope that at some point the EU (and others) will position mobility within an ambitious ‘internationalisation for all’ framework and understand that developing an international and intercultural mindset is crucial for all students, especially in higher education. Physical mobility is a unique, very useful and impactful activity, but it can’t be the only tool in the toolbox,” said Van Hove.

He believes things like COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) is a scalable way to potentially bring meaningful international exposure to all students.

“However, it is fundamentally different from mobility and should not be seen as a replacement, but rather as a complement. For this reason, I have been arguing against the use of the terminology ‘virtual mobility’ for several years,” he said.

Reforms slowed in some countries

During the webinar on 11 June, Thérèse Zhang, EUA deputy director for higher education policy, said lack of recognition for the time students spend on credit mobility in some European countries was still holding back progress and the reforms to some higher education systems – a key plank of the Bologna process – had slowed, or even stalled, over the last five years in some countries.

Despite that, she said Bologna was still very relevant, but it should keep up with changing demand, including growing interest in “short-term non-degree learning opportunities and more flexible programmes”, including micro-credentials.

She also warned that despite growing enrolments of international students in European universities, domestic demand was decreasing in some Eastern European countries, particularly in degree education.

Asked whether the rise of the EU-backed European University Alliances, and their offer of joint programmes leading to a European Degree label for students able to study at several universities in different European countries, meant the Bologna Process was in danger of becoming semi-redundant, the speakers vigorously defended the Bologna dream.

Bologna for the many

Onita said: “Bologna is for everyone and not just the few. The European (University) Alliances are important and an excellent boost for internationalisation but few (universities) are involved. What we need to do is make Bologna ‘catchy’ again.”

Crosier said he didn’t want to see University Alliances and the Bologna Process competing. “They are two things serving different purposes and we need to see how they can work together,” he stated.

“We don’t want to have the perception that only if you go to a certain university, that is in an alliance, can you go on mobility and be in a joint programme.

“Alliances are a great model of European cooperation, but we are not going to have every university in an alliance. It is never going to happen and we don’t want a two-speed system,” he said.

Nic Mitchell is a UK-based freelance journalist and PR consultant specialising in European and international higher education. He blogs at www.delacourcommunications.com