International higher education conference held in Budapest

The Bologna Process, which seeks to unify higher education in Europe, has already yielded significantly more advantages than problems, Istvan Hiller, Hungary's culture minister, told reporters before the opening ceremony of an international Bologna conference in Budapest on Thursday.

The bulk of positive outcomes, however, will be seen during the coming decade, Hiller said. He noted that he did not think the Bologna system was perfect but added that it was a task for Hungary's education policy to shape it through interaction.

Noting that promoting mobility was one of the objectives of the Bologna Process Hiller said that a total of 25,000 Hungarian students have chosen to study in higher education institutions abroad over the past years. At the same time, 10,000 foreign students came to study under the system to Hungary.

Mobility remains to be a main objective, Androulla Vassiliou, the EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, told the conference. She said that currently 10 percent of students within Europe are pursuing studies in higher education abroad. The goal she said was to have as high as 20 percent of them studying abroad within the European Higher Education Area by 2020.

The two-day conference, hosted jointly by Budapest and Vienna, seeks to set directions for the Bologna Process in the next ten years.

Hungary, along with 28 other countries, signed up to the Bologna accord in 1999, which creates a system for the comparability and transparency of diplomas and a two-stage higher-education system.

• Email
• Save to My Caboodle