Developing a European Education Programme

In her speech as Rector-candidate recently, Kirsti Koch Christensen spoke about the coming changes in education. Some of these changes relate to a movement of educational reform that is beginning spread throughout Europe.

In order for the European Union to become a practical reality, some intrinsic aspects, such as education, will have to be modified so as to reflect the current, unified, European reality more accurately. This will have the tremendous advantage of facilitating the mobility of faculty and students. However, as with any change, there are pros and cons.

The next few years will see everyone in Bergen, and throughout Europe involved in this exciting, disturbing, and interesting process. The discussions have begun…

For example, in the case of History, definitions such as "the Middle Ages", "the Renaissance Period", "the Modern Period" depend very much on the particular country, because, in turn, these definitions of historical periods are related to particular historical events that happened in each country at particular times.

In Norway, the definition of the beginning and end of various periods of the Middle Ages are related to particular union events, and then later, to the arrival of the reformation in Norway (1536, 1537). In England and France, they are tied to events such as the end of the 100 Years War (1453), or the fall of the West Roman Empire, in England. In Italy, the Italian renaissance is considered to be the most important division between the Middle Ages and Modern Times. Political events, such as the decline of the Roman Empire and the Pope's decision to move to France, are the decisive events used to define the dates for the Middle Ages in Italy (early 14th C). In these four countries, there are thus four different defining dates concerning the Middle Ages depending on the country being considered. A specialist in medieval history from Italy thus covers one set of dates, while one from another country covers a different time period…

Germany has recently decided to offer a unified History curriculum in all the German universities, at least in basic courses. While this facilitates the movement of faculty and staff between institutions, it also poses problems. Some departments have found that being required to offer all the courses involved in the unified curriculum over-taxes their resources. Conversely, particular specialities are being ignored or down-played because they are not part of this core curriculum, thus departments may, in fact, be losing particular, unique features, which were responsible for attracting students and faculty.

The English speaking universities participating in Socrates programmes, in particular, are finding that they receive more requests for exchanges than they have place for. In addition, the students from the English-speaking universities tend to be reluctant to attend non-English-speaking universities. How can this problem be addressed? Rune Nilsen, in his speech as Pro-rector candidate spoke of this problem here in Bergen. He raised the question of whether our welcome of foreign students is sufficient, whether they are adequately integrated into the student life here.

Co-ordinators of Socrates programmes have also pointed out that exchange students need to participate fully in the host university's programme; to do otherwise is an abuse of the Socrates exchange ideal.

In his speech as Pro-rector candidate, Harald Høiland underlined the importance of fundamental studies such as mathematics in the formation of quality students. He feels that the basic study of a subject such as mathematics, in fact, provides a foundation for virtually all subject areas. Other educators have voiced similar arguments. The importance of studying Latin is often mentioned in a similar context. Many classically trained people feel that their exposure to mathematics, Latin, and other classical (and rigorous) disciplines, has provided them with some of their most useful preparation in life. They feel that it is not that they have directly used the concepts they learned in these disciplines, but that in the learning of these subjects trained them in logical thinking and provided them with structural frameworks for further learning. Otherwise stated, they feel that you need to have a stable starting point from which to embark on voyages of discovery.

Will there be a "back to basics" dimension to this educational reform?