{"id":4247,"date":"2021-12-10T15:31:48","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T15:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esu-online.org\/new2022\/policies\/bm81-resolution-on-student-manifesto-on-the-future-of-higher-education-in-europe\/"},"modified":"2021-12-10T15:31:48","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T15:31:48","slug":"bm81-resolution-on-student-manifesto-on-the-future-of-higher-education-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"policy","link":"https:\/\/esu-online.org\/policies\/bm81-resolution-on-student-manifesto-on-the-future-of-higher-education-in-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"BM81: Student manifesto on the future of Higher Education in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European landscape of Higher Education is at an important turning point of its political cycle. A new Bologna cycle for the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is starting, whose goal will be to operationalise the commitments taken by the Higher Education Ministers<\/span>, namely on academic freedom<\/span> and fundamental values of the EHEA, on social dimension<\/span> and on learning and teaching<\/span>. Within the European Union, the new cycle of the Erasmus+ Programme started, between high political expectations and worrying faux pas in the implementation of its first year<\/span>. The cycle of the first cohort of the European Universities is ending, paving the way to a broader general reflection on the structures of these alliances, their goals and their sources of funding. In order to establish the European Education Area (EEA) by 2025 and to support higher education in adapting to climate change, technology, demographic change and the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission is working on a European Strategy for Universities<\/span> and on overcoming the obstacles to deeper integration of EU Higher Education systems<\/span>. The Next Generation EU and the National Recovery and Resilience Plans promise massive investments to re-start the EU post-pandemic economy, but the scant involvement of civil society in the design and implementation of the national plans, despite the requirements by the EU law<\/span>, casts doubts on the commitments of the governments, in terms of investments and reforms, including in Higher Education<\/span>. In light of this, the Conference on the Future of Europe and the European Year of Youth 2022 must be a turning point in the public discourse on Higher Education and on student involvement in the decision-making processes and in public life.<\/span><\/p>\n

The European Students\u2019 Union (ESU) believes that the future of education in Europe lies in an integrated European Higher Education Area, where fundamental values<\/span>, automatic recognition of degrees, upward convergence of student rights and democratic and effective student representation on all levels (from local to European and transnational) are practised. To this end, the European Education Area can help in enabling the processes to remove the obstacles to further integration, but the measures to achieve that need to be designed and implemented with the thorough involvement of all the stakeholders – including students – and need to be available for all the Higher Education Institutions operating in the Area. ESU believes that Higher Education Institutions and national Higher Education systems must maintain the right and the ability to adapt their offer to the needs and specificity of their communities and societies. In order to achieve this, the European Education Area governance body should represent all the EU institutions, European stakeholders and the Member States delegations, within which at least 25% shall be democratically elected student representatives<\/span>. The EU Council must commit to official recognition of the democratic student representation on all levels of decision making, including within the governance framework of the European Universities while respecting the different traditions of student organising and self-governance<\/span>. The European added value to education would be visible also in promoting topics insufficiently explored at the national level, such as academic integrity for the benefit of the students<\/span>, and in promoting ambitious initiatives in the digital transformation of Higher Education. For instance, ESU proposes an initiative involving establishing a European Digital Higher Education platform, open to accredited Higher Education Institutions of the EU Member States and partner countries, which would facilitate the access to courses, credentials and materials for the whole European academic community, as well as serve as the single repository for MOOCs, digital credentials, open access scientific papers and other research and educational material for the broader society, in the spirit of Open Science<\/span>. The European added value is also present in the issue of mobility, both in ensuring broad access to inclusive physical mobility and in tackling structural inequalities within Europe and its Higher Education systems that lead to brain drain.<\/span><\/p>\n

ESU believes that the Conference on the Future of Europe needs to be used to make new ideas on the future of education to emerge. That is why ESU, together with the National Alliance of Student Organisations in Romania (ANOSR), organised the event \u2018The future of the EU and the future of Education \u2013 what\u2019s in for students?\u2019<\/span>, which brought together student activists from different countries, as well as from ESU\u2019s associate membership (European sectoral student federations) to share their vision on education in Europe. From the discussions, some conclusions emerge:<\/span><\/p>\n