Owen.
There has been considerable criticism of the Bologna Process in Spain, which many consider to be an attack on the traditional conception of the university as an independent space of free and disinterested learning. Bologna is presented as a plan to increase student and graduate mobility by harmonizing degrees across Europe, which will require restructuring of degrees in Spain along the lines of the N. American system. It´s difficult to argue with more mobility and access to jobs across Europe (nobody does), and this is entirely the point: the Anti-Bologna movement does not disagree in principle with these ideas, rather in the manner of their implementation and the deeper institutional changes that they mask.
In reality, Bologna is an attack on the university as we (well, Spaniards anyway) know it; a sneaky attempt at privatization. The result will be a larger, more malleable European workforce, pumped out by universities that will no longer be at the service of society´s needs but the narrow economic interests of big business and the multinationals that will soon control them. Rising tuition costs and the steady marginalization of the humanities will only be the first and most obvious of the changes to come. The result will be an ever more integrated and precarious wage slave-force incapable of criticizing its own enslavement. That´s the idea, anyway.
The students and other citizens who are clear-eyed and courageous enough to see this and demand that it stop have given us considerable hope as well as ample evidence of the lengths to which this democracy will go in order to stifle dissent.This link to ANECA (National Agency of Quality Assessment and Accreditation) explains the Bologna process nicely from the perspective of those charged with supervising the conversion of the Spanish university into a private enterprise, of students into "clients"-- Bologna directly from the horse´s mouth, as it were. See also this link to the LOU http://www.aneca.es/ingles/
Videos & Images:
La Rambla, Barcelona. Journalist, mother and 10 year old child not involved in protest attacked by police:
Students being thrown off campus of U. of Barcelona 18 March:
Students being ejected from Palau Robert campus:
Some questions to consider:
-Is it possible for universities in different European countries to satisfy the demands of a continental capitalist economy (i.e. made-to-order workers) by adopting a homogeneous educational model, without sacrificing their own unique character, and while at the same time fulfilling their own society´s specific needs? Is it even desirable?
-Mobility for whom? Roughly 1% (150,000) of European students take part in the Erasmus exchange program every year. This is a significant but very limited chunk of the population. You might ask yourself how many students can afford to go abroad for a year, which students tend to be selected (usually those with decent marks)? Which students get the best marks in Spain? Usually the ones who can afford to have gone to private schools. Now, imagine that tuition rises significantly, and you can see the pool of potential Erasmus participants rapidly shrinking. If we expand our circle a little bit and think of all the people living precariously (usually illegally) in Europe and those who are prevented from even entering, we begin to see that mobility quickly losses significance when the term is a little more generously applied. This is, of course, assuming that mobility is really intended for students and not the workers they will become, either forced into jobs abroad or among the privileged few who will be able to move across Europe according to the demands of business.
-Mobility for what purpose? Aside from second language acquisition, the Erasmus program has been touted as a culturally-enriching experience that opens new perspectives for students and exposes them to different educational systems. If we adopt a universal, increasingly centralized and privatized university model, one of the more convincing arguments for mobility will have been eliminated. Erasmus will further degenerate into an international frat party for the privileged few.
-Is Bologna really necessary to increase mobility? Does it even have anything to do with mobility, or is this just a cover? Would mobility not be more meaningful in the context of a rich variety of European education systems and in a society that does not deny mobility to some while granting it to the privileged few?
-What is a university? Where did it come from, where should it go? Should its main purpose and function be to produce workers? Should it be wedded to or protected from private interest?
D.M.R. Bentley´s discussion paper´s on the nature of the university and the function of the humanities: http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/discussion_papers.htm
http://www.noabolonia.org/
Dossier informativo sobre el proceso de Bolonia:
http://pdfmenot.com/store_
Posts
"For civility to mean anything it must apply in all universities, including those in Palestine and Israel, as well as our own privileged academic enclaves."
Of course they edited this key sentence out of my letter, but I suppose this shouldn´t surprise me: normally The Star doesn´t even publish my online comments, let alone letters to the editor in print. Unfortunately, by removing that line (which obviously hit just a little too close to the bone) they subtly divert the emphasis away from my criticism of the empty rhetoric of "civility" and "security" on Canadian campuses, to my indignation over general slandering of protestors. Bastards.
The full text of my letter to the editor:
The protests sweeping global campuses are a response to Israel's recent invasion of Gaza and its ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories. It's not about "student security and campus civility." What space can there be for Palestinian civility when their universities are closed or cut off by checkpoints, settlements or the creeping wall enclosing their land; when they are destroyed by Israeli missiles, their students killed and their civil and human rights daily curtailed?
For civility to mean anything it must apply in all universities, including those in Palestine and Israel, as well as our own privileged academic enclaves. Diverting the issue from the Israeli occupation, and urging professors to teach their students that the real issue is security and civility on campuses, makes a mockery of your idea of engagement. Obviously, violence has no place on campuses, which is why the great majority of activists opt for non-violent forms of protest. Lumping thousands of conscientious activists together with a few racists and hotheads by only mentioning "radical student hooligans" is unfair. If it's true that day after day we read about aggressive student protesters, maybe it is because they are angry; they certainly have every right to be.
Palestinians do not need to "try equating Israel with the now-defunct racist South African apartheid regime." Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and other prominent activists have already let us know that life under Israeli apartheid is much worse.
Owen Rafferty, Toronto