The EU wants governments and universities to do more to make sure that industry has enough quality graduates.
When the European Commission proposed a significant increase in the EU education budget in July, headlines focused on its plan to double, almost, the number of people receiving grants to study abroad under programmes such as Erasmus.
But at the same time, it said support would be targeted towards policy reforms and modernising education systems. Goals in this area, left vague in the July announcement, were set out in a strategy for higher education published on 20 September.
The strategy places higher education firmly within the EU's policy on growth and jobs, arguing that governments and universities should be doing more to supply industry with employable graduates and new business ideas. It says that reforms are required to increase the number of graduates at all levels and to enhance the quality and relevance of what they learn.
It wants to see “effective” governance and funding mechanisms created in order to support excellence in higher education, with stronger bonds between education, research and business.
Since education is a national competence, it is left to governments and higher education institutions to deliver the reforms.
The EU contribution will be through incentives for transparency, diversification, mobility and co-operation. Initiatives include introducing a university ranking system intended to provide an alternative to systems that favour research-intensive universities, and providing better information on the skill requirements of labour markets, to allow or encourage degrees to be tailored accordingly.
The European University Association broadly supports the strategy, but feels the scope is too narrow. One area it would like to see the EU tackle is in supporting the professionalisation of university management. “This will be crucial to making many of the ongoing reforms truly sustainable and would send an important signal towards both member states and institutions,” it said in a statement.
But the focus on business has not gone down well in other quarters, with teaching unions among those arguing that universities should not be influenced by the short-term goals of the private sector. “We feel sorry that the Commission agenda considers education as an activity to serve labour market needs, failing to see its added value in the personal development of individuals,” said Agnes Roman, policy co-ordinator at the European Trade Union Committee for Education.
Similarly, Erasmus students take a dim view of the Commission's emphasis on the programme's job-market benefits, when the original goals focused more on self-development.
“Even though employability and acquisition of skills and competencies are important priorities, they should for no reason, even given the financial difficulties that the EU is facing, replace the overarching goal of fostering European citizenship and enhancing the feeling of belonging to the EU,” said Tania Berman, president of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN).
Master's loans
Mobility will get the greatest cash injection from the EU, mainly through plans to increase the number of grants, but the Commission is also setting up a loan guarantee scheme for master's students who want to study abroad. This fills a gap at the national level, where master's funding tends to be tied to domestic study.
Worth around €100 million per year, the ‘Erasmus for Masters' scheme is expected to be operational by 2014.
The European Students' Union is sceptical. “There is a high risk that the loans will be very expensive for students, especially to those coming from low-earning EU countries,” said its chairman, Allan Päll. “This is small compensation for the failure of ministers to make national funding portable.”
The ESN sees the plan as an unwelcome break with the programme's tradition of offering grants. “Offering students a loan is asking them to finance their future themselves, and underlines a low commitment to fostering mobility from the public parties, whereas all statistics underline how valuable grants are to encourage mobility,” said Berman.
Article from: http://www.europeanvoice.com/CWS/Index.aspx?PageID=178&articleID=72225
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