Bologna Declaration and its Expected Effects at VSB -- Technical University of Ostrava

by

Vaclav Roubicek, CSc., Rector
VSB – Technical University of Ostrava
Ostrava, Czech Republic
vaclav.roubicek@vsb.cz

Lecture delivered at the International Workshop: Engineering Education in the Global World, devoted to 80^th Anniversary Celebration of the Donetsk State Technical University, Donetsk, Ukraine
June 1, 2001

1. Introduction

Ten years ago, in Czech Republic, the important social-political and economic changes took place to which our University had to react. This stage of development had both positive and negative sides.

The most important positive features are:

• Renewal of academic freedom and creation of higher educational establishments autonomy
• Greater responsibility of students for choice of the speciality
• Broadening of the general basis of education and wider profile of specialities
• Improvement of computer equipment
• Widening abroad contacts
• Gradual implementation of credit system of education
• Accreditation according to the FEANI Index (European Federation of National Engineering Associations).

The main negative features are:

• Distinctive decrease of interest to education in technical institutions
• Decrease of social prestige of technical professions
• Lack of interest from the side of experienced experts in the field of industry to work in our University
• Gradual growth of problems in large enterprises of our region which were the traditional partners of our University
• Chaotic conception of transformation of secondary schools
• Insufficient level of language knowledge which does not allow us to use the programs of the European Union in full.

VSB - Technical University of Ostrava, even in conditions unfavourable for technical institutions, shows continuous growth in the number of students since 1989/90 academic year. We were the single University in Czech Republic to open two new departments of technical orientation – the Department of Electrical Engineering and Informatics and the Building Department.

To traditional engineering educational programs (they are now called Master's programs) there were gradually added Bachelor educational programs mostly as parallel programs offered besides the Master programs. That is, students could have studied either in the 3-year Bachelor degree programs or in 5-year Master degree programs. The new Bachelor’s programs in 1999-2000 academic year were taken up by 10% of the students enrolled. The Doctoral program was broadened and now approximately 8% of our students study in it.

2. Bologna Declaration

The direct predecessor of the Bologna Declaration was the joint declaration about harmonic construction of European educational system in higher educational establishments. It was signed in May, 1998 in Paris by ministers of four of the most famous countries of EU and is known as Sorbonna Declaration. This Declaration demands knowledge from Europe as a counterbalance of financial and economic Europe. The Declaration underlines the irreplaceable role and responsibility of universities both in the development of European scales in the field of culture, and in the process of creating European sphere of higher education as the main method of developing citizens' mobility and measure of population employment in the total continent's development.

Bologna Declaration further extends the ideas of Sorbonna Declaration. As a main objective it seeks to raise international competitiveness of European higher educational system and achieve its international attractiveness. This Declaration marks the year 2010 as the target year for implementation and shows concrete steps with the help of which it is possible to achieve the goal. For example, this program includes:

1. Adoption of descriptive and comparable academic ranks system, and also introduction of additional ranks system aimed at supporting measure of European citizens employment and international competitiveness of European system of higher education.
2. Implementation of a two-stage (pregraduate and postgraduate) model of education in higher educational establishments. To enter the second stage of education it is necessary for students to finish successfully three years of pregraduate education. The degree of qualification received by students after the first stage of education (Bachelor) should have the level adequate for the European labour market. The second stage of education should bring student to Master's diploma or to obtaining Doctor degree.
3. Creating credit systems analogous to the European Credit Transfer System as a means of students mobility support in the broad sense of the word. Credits could be received in the context of the university education, including life-long education. It is supposed that the credits will be accepted by those universities that admit the student who apply to them.
4. Support of European cooperation in providing quality in development of comparative criteria and methodological approaches.
5. Creation of necessary European scales in higher education, taking into account, primarily, development of educational programs contents, programs of inter-institutional cooperation, programs of mobility support, and also integrated programs of education, professional training and research.

The Declaration was signed by the representatives of 29 countries of Europe, and though it expresses political will to create a European sphere of higher education based on inter-governmental cooperation, it requires the involvement of other governmental and non-governmental organisations active in higher education and the universities themselves.

One of the first results was a document prepared by the European Conference of Rectors (CRE) on behalf of European Union Committee for Higher Education and Research in Strasbourg in March, 2001. This document clearly defines Bologna Declaration as a key instrument in transforming European higher educational establishments.

3. Current Situation in VSB - Technical University of Ostrava

There are 12 educational programs for Bachelors, 14 for Masters and 16 Doctoral programs accredited at six departments of the University. All of them, with little exception, are present both in full-time and distant forms of education.

Training Bachelors is mostly spread at Manufacturing Engineering (”Machine-Building”) Department (26,6% of registered students) and at Metallurgical and Material Science Department (10,9% of registered students). Here by parallel education it is meant as follows: Possibility to enter Master educational program is provided by the form of compensatory study. Candidates for this study are numerous but the number of those who finish the course successfully is considerably lower.

Master educational programs coming out of Bachelor educational programs are alternatively accredited for standard three-years education at the Department of Metallurgy and Material Science only. At Mining and Geology Department these programs exist for only some of the specialities (Environmental Engineering, Geographic Information Systems and Safety in Industry) and the standard duration of education in these programs is only for two years. At the rest of the departments the so called short Master programs are not accredited.

VSB - Technical University of Ostrava was one of the first universities to introduce credit system of education which is compatible with ECTS. It has been implemented at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Informatics since 1991/92 academic year, at Manufacturing Engineering Department since 1992/93, and then gradually at all the other departments. At the present moment all the six departments use credit system according to 5^Th clause of Single educational and examination regulation of VSB - Technical University of Ostrava. Manufacturing Engineering Department and Economic Department made up information packages in English in the framework of the Socrates/ECTS project.

4. Definition of Possible Transformation Tendencies

In spite of all rules, agreements and other strong outer forces and pressures, it is necessary to remember that the biggest possible power of changes is in hands of academic staff at every higher educational institution. Transformation has to be prepared and done with our own forces.

The main objectives can be summarized as follows:

• To introduce structured education allowing at least two successful graduations from the institution, i.e. to become a graduate with a 2-degree education (Bachelor and Master) during the process of study.
• To raise the measure of employment for graduates. It's connected with their labor mobility within the country and abroad. The graduates should have a good command of foreign languages and social interactive skills. They should have the possibility not only to get education but also to raise their qualification level.
• To decrease share of the students finishing their education without graduation, not decreasing the quality of education.
• To increase students’ mobility during the whole period of education.
• To include life-long education into different kinds of accredited educational programs.
• To open programs for those who have already finished a lower stage of education in other institutions, including foreign ones.
• To raise effectiveness and implement practical means in educational practices.

It's a paradox, but the decrease of young people's interest in technical specialties of institutions is an advantage for us. We do not experience any pressure while creating private institutions and institutions of technical education and, conversely, we are supported in finding new ways on how to attract students to these branches. In connection with this it is possible, and even necessary, to widen the demand in the sphere of professionally oriented educational programs for Bachelors.

The project of possible multi-stage education originates from serial structured education. We have to distinguish the students who, after finishing a block of obligatory subjects, intend to continue their education to obtain Master's degrees, from those who want to finish their education right after the first stage of education. This differentiation is possible if students choose subjects or a block of subjects in the credit system already created by us.

The condition necessary to continue education in the framework of the Master's program is completion of the Bachelor's education and obligatory subjects in this training, as measured by the number of credits in different subjects. Students willing to continue their education (after some time spent in job training in the home country or abroad) to get Master's degree but who, however, do not respond to the second condition, should attend and finish the so-called compensatory study. This course is a part of Master's educational program. The same approach could be used with Bachelor graduates from other universities. In this connection it will be necessary to re-consider the question of how to accept part of the education received in "Higher Educational Schools" when entering Bachelor's programs in the university.

The project of serial education looks simple, but it's quite difficult to work out its contents and program.

There are some aspects/goals we have to keep in mind:

• It's necessary to distinguish goals of separate stages of education in connection with different profile of the graduates.
• We have to find proper mechanisms and criteria for assessing quality of education in separate stages.
• Implementation of structured education will demand creation of new curricula and to expand the programs in some subjects.
• In connection with the fact that graduates acquire a wide range of comprehensive knowledge, it will be possible for the universities to concentrate on scientific education.
• Mutual relations of educational programs mentioned above will allow students to make "horizontal" and, primarily, "vertical" transfers between different institutions.
• It's desirable to give more opportunities to foreign students to study in our universities, i.e. to introduce parallel education in the English language.
• It's desirable to use our advantage of combination of economic department with technical departments in order to create a demand in the sphere of inter-departmental educational programs, especially in professionally oriented educational programs for Bachelors.
• It's necessary to economize in the education process through approximation curricula of technical departments in the first semesters of education. This is a necessary premise for introducing parallel education in foreign language and for implementation of distance learning elements.

4. Conclusion

We think that the real problem is not whether we should do transformation at all but how or in what term to do it. There will be some moderating facts acting against these transformation attempts. They are inherent caution, unwillingness to break traditions, desire to save good old methods and organization of educational process, and also conventionality of estimating Bachelor as adequate for the university. Dealing with the whole range of details connected with overcoming traditions will probably acquire much time. We want the discussion and preparatory work to start immediately as we cannot afford to be isolated from Czech and European higher educational establishments. The other important thing is that preparatory work should be based on strong cooperation inside our university .

Thank you for your attention.

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