Strengthening the European Higher Education Area

Read the main results of the ministerial conference within the Bologna Process and the EC's EHEA implementation report.

At the end of May, representatives of 47 countries gathered at the ministerial conference within the Bologna Process in Tirana, Albania. Ministerial conferences are held regularly, aiming to evaluate progress and plan steps and priorities for the further development of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The last conference took place in Rome in 2020, and the next one is planned for 2027. One of this year's meeting results is the Tirana Communiqué.

Although the Bologna Process includes many more countries than just the EU member states, the European Union is a major supporter of it, and many of the Commission's initiatives in the field of higher education are means to fulfill its goals (e.g., the European Universities initiative, the European degree and the Europe on the move recommendation). Before the ministerial conference, the European Commission, the EACEA executive agency, and the Eurydice network published the latest version of the Bologna Process Implementation Report, which provides an overview of the current situation and political commitments in the involved countries.

Bologna Process Implementation Report

The report, titled "The European Higher Education Area in 2024," in its introduction, presents key data and describes the current situation in the field of higher education. It mentions, for example, the continuing growth of higher education students and staff on average (however, some countries, including Czechia, report rather a decline) or relatively stable investments in education across the participating countries. However, with the increasing number of students and staff, this means an actual reduction in financial resources. According to the report, Czechia has the highest percentage increase in the budget (47%) between 2015-2020 per student.

The report further addresses the three main commitments of the Bologna Process. It confirms that the vast majority of the involved countries have implemented a three-cycle system in higher education (bachelor's, master's, and doctoral studies), although programs that do not fit into this structure can still be encountered occasionally. In the area of recognition of qualifications, the report highlights ongoing development and progress, especially regarding the implementation of the Lisbon Recongnition Convention into national legislation, which has already been done by 31 countries. Czechia has legislatively anchored 4 out of 5 principles of the Lisbon Convention, including processes for recognizing refugee qualifications, which only about half of the Bologna Process countries apply. Another 18 countries have set up automatic recognition processes for qualifications from all EHEA countries. Nonetheless, mutual automatic recognition remains one of the priorities and challenges for the future. Czechia is one of 16 countries that have set automatic recognition with certain European countries but not yet within the entire EHEA.

The third main commitment concerns quality assurance, with 32 countries currently members of the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR), allowing either partial or full evaluation of programs by other agencies registered in the system. Czechia, along with Croatia and Italy, is in the category of countries actively working on legislation to allow evaluations by EQAR-registered agencies to be recognized in their territory. Currently, less than 25% of programs at Czech universities are evaluated by EQAR-registered agencies. At the opposite end of the spectrum are 13 countries that do not yet use or plan to implement this system.

In other chapters, the report thoroughly analyzes the support of fundamental values (including academic freedom and integrity), the social dimension in higher education, teaching and learning, and internationalization. Czechia is, for instance, listed as one of the two countries with the highest number of students involved in governance at higher education institutions (along with the French community in Belgium) and as one of the three countries (along with Austria and Malta) that meet all four established criteria for an inclusive environment and culture at higher education institutions.

On the other hand, in terms of flexible and individualized educational opportunities, Czechia is one of the countries where flexibility is not as great as it could be. This concerns, for example, distance education, which is only possible if the program is accredited as a distance one. Czechia also remains one of the four countries that have not yet aligned their national qualification framework with the overarching EHEA framework.

Tirana Communiqué

The topics covered in the implementation report and the ministers' discussions were reflected in the Tirana Communiqué, which is divided into seven sections that gradually specify the key commitments of the participating countries, important areas for further development, and outline the outlook for the future. One of the key parts of the communiqué is the commitment to support fundamental values such as academic integrity, institutional autonomy, student and staff participation in setting processes at higher education institutions, public responsibility of higher education institutions to the broader society, and national authorities' responsibility to higher education institutions. Other goals include, for instance, an inclusive EHEA (support for students, well-being, the social dimension at universities, or refugees), an innovative EHEA (support for ecological and digital transformation, various teaching formats, teachers, and artificial intelligence), and a interconnected EHEA (support for student and staff mobility, blended and virtual activities, seamless data exchange, and cooperation with all relevant stakeholders). The latter category also includes the above mentioned issue of recognition of foreign qualifications.

More information can be found on the European Education Area Portal.