Внеаудиторное чтение Higher Education

The Bologna Process

  

The Bologna Process is a series of agreements between European countries designed to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher education qualifications. It is named after the place it was proposed, the University of Bologna, celebrating the 900th anniversary, with the signing of the Bologna declaration by Education Ministers from 29 European countries in 1999, forming a part of European integration.

The Bologna Process currently has 47 participating countries. The basic framework adopted is of three cycles of higher education qualifications. These are statements of what students know and can do on completion of their degrees.

1st cycle: a bachelor's degree.

2nd cycle: a master's degree.

3rd cycle: a doctoral degree.

In most cases, these will take 3–4 years for a bachelor's degree, 1–2 years for a master's degree, and 3–4 years for a doctoral degree, respectively to complete. The Bologna Process was a major reform created with the goal of providing responses to issues such as the public responsibility for higher education and research with the most demanding qualification needs.

With the Bologna Process implementation, higher education systems in European countries are to be organized in such a way that:
it is easy to move from one country to the other (within the European Higher Education Area) – for the purpose of further study or employment; the attractiveness of European higher education has increased, so that many people from non-European countries also come to study and/or work in Europe; the European Higher Education Area provides Europe with a broad, high quality advanced knowledge base, and ensures the further development of Europe as a stable, peaceful and tolerant community.

The Russian higher education framework was basically incompatible with the Process: the general degree in all universities since Soviet era is the Specialist which can be obtained after completing 5–6 years of studies. Since the mid-90s, many universities have introduced limited educational programmes allowing students to graduate with a bachelor's degree (4 years) and then earn a master's degree (another 1–2 years) while preserving the old 5–6 year scheme. In October 2007 Russia enacted a move to two-tier education in line with Bologna Process model. The universities inserted a BSc diploma in the middle of their standard specialist programs; transition to real MS qualification has not been completed yet 

History of Academic Degree 

An academic degree is a college or university diploma, often associated with a title and sometimes associated with an academic position, which is usually awarded.

The most common degrees awarded today are Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees. Most higher education institutions generally offer certificates and programs of Master of Advanced Studies, which is known as a Diplôme d'études supérieures spécialisées under its original French name.

The modern system of academic degrees evolved and expanded in the medieval university, spreading everywhere across the globe. No other European institution has spread over the entire world in the way in which the traditional form of the European university has done. The degrees awarded by European universities – the bachelor’s degree, the licentiate, the master’s degree, and the doctorate – have been adopted in the most diverse societies throughout the world.

The doctorate (Latin: doceo, I teach) appeared in medieval Europe as a license to teach at a medieval university. Its roots can be traced to the early church when the term "doctor" referred to the Apostles, church farther and other Christian authorities who taught and interpreted the Bible.

Originally the terms "master" and "doctor" were synonymous, but over time the doctorate came to be regarded as a higher qualification than the master degree.

In the medieval European universities, candidates who had completed three or four years of study in the prescribed texts of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic), and the quadrivium (mathematics, geometry, astronomy and music), together known as the Liberal Arts, and who had successfully passed examinations held by their master, would be admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts.

 Further study would earn one the Master of Arts degree. Master of Arts was eligible to enter study under the "higher faculties" of Law, Medicine or Theology, and earn first a bachelor's and then master or doctor's degrees in these subjects. Thus a degree was only a step on the way to becoming a fully qualified master – hence the English word "graduate", which is based on the Latin gradus ("step").

Today the terms "master", "doctor" (from the Latin "teacher") and "professor" signify different levels of academic achievement, but in the Medieval  university they were equivalent terms, the use of them in the degree name being a matter of custom at a university. Most universities conferred the Master of Arts, although the highest degree was often termed Master of Theology or Doctor of Theology depending on the place.

The earliest doctoral degrees (theology - Divinitatis Doctor (D.D.), philosophy - Doctor of philosophy (D.Phil., Ph.D.) and medicine - Medicine Doctor (M.D., D.M.) reflected the historical separation of all University study into these three fields. Over time the D.D. has gradually become less common and studies outside theology and medicine have become more common (such studies were then called "philosophy", but are now classified as sciences and humanities – however this usage survives in the degree of Doctor of Philosophy) [10].

Notes:

·       Master of Advanced Studies	- степень магистра по углубленной профессиональной подготовке
·       licentiate	- степень лиценциата (в средневековых университетах – промежуточная степень между бакалавром и доктором)
·       quadrivium	- четыре пути, квадривий (в средние века – группа наук (арифметика, геометрия, астрономия, музыка) вместе с trivium «семь свободных искусств (наук)»
·       trivium	трехпутье, тривий (первая группа семипредметного средневекового школьного курса (риторика, грамматика, диалектика)
·       Liberal Arts	- гуманитарные науки
·       Divinitatis Doctor	- доктор богословия