The Changing Landscape of Higher Education: An Analysis of Bologna Policy and Ireland's Engagement with the Process

Abstract

In 1999 the Irish state agreed to participate voluntarily in an international policy process, more commonly known as Bologna. The process aimed to reform higher education in a ten-year period, and to establish the European Higher Education Area. Policy implementation in Bologna was facilitated through the open method of co-ordination. This mode of governance sidestepped many of the cumbersome hard law and treaty-based issues normally associated with the European Union. This article considers how Bologna utilised the open method of co-ordination, by examining the policy instruments used to facilitate lesson drawing and the sharing of best practice. The paper categorises Bologna instruments as mainly suasive, and examines policy convergence with respect to one policy instrument and one element of policy content. Ireland is identified internationally as having played a pivotal role in the development of qualification frameworks within Bologna. Qualification frameworks based on learning outcomes provided a means to progress quality and recognition action lines with Bologna. The paper moves from the supra-national policy environment to consider the national implementation of the Irish National Framework for Qualifications. This analysis reveals institutional and sectoral level issues concerning Irish universities, which are associated with policy implementation and the adoption of the learning outcomes paradigm. The paper concludes by considering challenges for the co-ordination and implementation of this policy instrument at the supra-national level and ultimately the establishment of the European Higher Education Area based on the Irish universities' experience. Author's e-mail: mairead.nicgiollamhichil@dcu.ie Irish Studies in International Affairs , Vol. 24 (2013), 331-345. doi: 10.33 18/ISIA.201 3.24. 18 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.124 on Wed, 22 Jun 2016 05:13:16 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 332 Irish Studies in International Affairs INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO BOLOGNA The Bologna process has been described as a mechanism that enabled policy convergence through transnational problem solving.1 This paper supports this contention and considers that the problem to be solved can be described as the reform of higher education to realise and facilitate the so-called knowledge society. Mary Henkel argues that the 'changing conceptions of knowledge' have led governments and their publics to expand and to adapt their higher-education systems.2 Theoretical knowledge is seen by Daniel Bell as a fundamental characteristic of innovation a cornerstone of the knowledge society: And the university, research organizations and intellectual institutions, where theoretical knowledge is codified and enriched, become the axial structures of the emergent society.3 Scientific knowledge has become an increasingly productive force in society in the twentieth century allowing for the continued development, manipulation and control of social constructs.4 Globalisation is a key factor driving the knowledge society and economy.5 Berit Askling, Mary Henkel and Barbara Kehm assert that the implicit knowledge and skills previously 'inseparable from the human actor' have become progressively explicit, codified and available to all through education.6 Ivar Bleiklie describes this interpretation of knowledge as an outcome as opposed to a procedure.7 Education is seen as a tool to develop human resources first, for the ultimate benefit of society and second, to meet the demands of the marketplace.8 Thomas Davenport and Lawrence Prusak outline succinctly the prevailing paradigm: People search for knowledge because they expect it to help them succeed... Knowledge is the most sought-after remedy to uncertainty. . .When we supply knowledge we expect to benefit too.9 Higher education had been tasked to play a central role to realise the benefits of