More than six thousand students and academics marched through the centre of Athens last night to oppose government plans to reform the country’s higher education system and allow private universities to operate in Greece.

The protests reflect the rising tension over the reforms proposed by government, which would break a major taboo in Greece by allowing private universities to operate under state supervision and to issue state-recognized degrees. Academic staff began a three-day strike Wednesday, and have threatened open-ended strikes from next week. State primary and secondary school teachers held a sympathy work stoppage. The protest has become a weekly march to the Greek parliament against the planned reform. The protesters vowed to keep coming back until the bill was scrapped.

The Australian reports:

Maybe this student and her fellow protestors should think twice before rejecting the option of allowing private universities to operate in Greece. After all…they need them!

Greek higher education is very dependent on the UK higher education system, having over 20,000 students in the UK (see table above). Here, students pay (high) tuition fees to be able to attend higher education, which they cannot get in their own country. In addition, Greece sends about 20,000 students to other countries in the EU, making it the largest importer of higher education in Europe. Maybe allowing other (private) universities in the country isn’t such a bad idea after all…

On the 24th of January, a so-called ‘letter of formal notice‘ has been sent by the European Commission to the governments of Austria and Belgium. The letter concerns the ‘Europeanisation by stealth’ that I have addressed before here for the case of Austria and here for the case of Belgium. These governments thought they found a solution for the high influx of foreign students (respectively German and French) in some of their universities.

European law – Article 12 of the EC Treaty – prohibits discrimination on the basis of nationality. In Austria, they thought they found a way to circumvent European law by discriminating not on the basis of nationality (which was addressed by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in July 2005) but on the basis of the location where students obtained their secondary education. Now it seems that the Commission considers that Austria has still not complied with the ECJ’s ruling:

Reforms in Belgium (the Wallonian part) last year restricted the number of foreign students in particular degrees like veterinary science and physiotherapy. Many French students studied in Belgium because they are required to go through entrance exams in France. While writing about that case in March last year, I already predicted that this might constitute a breach of Article 12. In their letter, the Commission seems to agree:

Both Member States have now 2 months to respond to the letter of formal notice of the Commission. A letter of formal notice has no direct legal consequences but it is considered the first step of infringement proceedings which could lead to cases before the ECJ.

Most likely there will be more similar cases like this in the near future. The EU Observer for instance addresses the Denmark case:

So why do I keep coming back to this issue? The cases in themselves of course do have a significant local impact. But it is more about the bigger picture: the loss of national sovereignty over an issue that has always been firmly within the authority of national governments. To what extent can a ‘non discrimination’ principle function in a service that is still seen as very important for the advancement of national society, national culture and the national economy.

Here, it could be interesting to make a comparison with the United States. In the US, discrimination on the basis of the ‘state of origin’ is a normal practice. Some public universities (the State Universities) have a clear mandate to recruit a certain part of their student population from their own region (some states or university systems set caps on the proportion of students that can be enrolled from other states) and are allowed to charge higher tuition to out-of-state students. One could conclude that higher education in the United states of Europe is more integrated than in the United States of America…

The pressure from the Commission and the rulings of the ECJ can especially have an important impact upon policies regulating student fees. If selection on the basis of nationality is no longer possible, it will become unsustainable to provide free education in some countries. After all, this is likely to create an influx of foreign students from other EU member countries (for which the tax payers in the host country are probably unwilling to pay). As we have seen in the cases above, not only tuition fees, but also other barriers to access might cause such an outflux.

In the ScienceGuide I read the reaction of the chairman of the National Unions of Students in Europe (ESIB), Koen Geven. He says that the letter of the Commission came too late and is too soft. Nevertheless, they are happy the Commission is finally taking action, because these two countries (Belgium and Austria) have been neglecting one of the most fundamental principles in the European Union – non discrimination – for too long.

I would think that the ultimate consequences of this increased Europeanisation of higher education might turn out to be very much contradictory to the guiding principles of some national student unions (for instance with regards to tuition fees and other financial issues, like providing financial student support to – national – students). I wonder what the Austrian and Belgium members of the ESIB think of the Commissions letter! Geven also says that the countries where the students come from should reconsider their regulations with respect to access to higher education. Indirectly that would mean – in this case – that Germany and France should harmonise their policies towards ‘a European standard’, leading to further convergence in the field and threatening the – so much treasured – diversity in European higher education.

I think the Commission is well aware of the senstivity of the issue on the longer term. It clearly shows that in the press release:

I’ll keep a close eye on further developments in this case.

Some months ago, the Vienna based International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) published a study on admission and retention policies towards foreign students.

Much has been written about the way in which states and universities have promoted international mobility of students and international recruiting. This study looks at what happens with these foreign students after they graduate. This is particularly interesting considering that more and more industrialised countries are looking for ways to promote immigration of highly skilled professionals to help boost their economy.

The study covers the following countries in detail: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, and the United Kingdom. Additionally, developments regarding student migration are outlined in the Czech Republic, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and Spain. The report (96 pages) shows some interesting statistics and comparisons. Here are some passages from the executive summary.

On the growth of international students:

The dynamic growth of the international student population over the last five years was also, compared to the US, more pronounced in many European and overseas countries. While the stock of international students increased by only 10% in the US between 2000 and 2005, France and Germany saw their international student population increase by more than 60%, Australia by over 120% and Sweden by 146%.

On retention rates:

On average, between 15 and 20% of foreign students can be expected to eventually settle and work in Canada. In New Zealand, of all first-time students between 1998 and 2005, 13% had already received a permanent residence permit by 2006. In Norway, of all non-EEA students studying there between 1991 and 2005, 18% stayed in the country after graduation (but only 9% of all EEA students). In the UK, a recent survey sent to EU domiciled students six months after graduation in 2005 indicates that around 27% of respondents were employed in the UK (up from 19% in 2000). On the other hand, survey data for the USA indicate that retention rates for foreign nationals who received a doctorate in science and engineering are well over 50% (there are no comparable data on non-doctorate degrees available).

Download the full report here

Last Month, the Dutch Central Planning Agency (CPB; international name: Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis) published a report on the role of Europe in higher education: “Higher education: Time for coordination on a European level?” (in English). More specifically, they asked the question whether there are valid reasons for more European (as opposed to national) coordination of higher education. Their final conclusion is NO: there is little empirical data that supports a shift towards European coordination of higher education. The authors claim that neither economies of scale, nor the existence of external spill-overs substantially justify an increased European role.

However, looking at European developments in the last few decades, I do see that there is a shift from national coordination towards European coordination. Question then is of course: why does this happen? And who pushes for increased Europeanisation if there are no justified reasons for nation states to do so? Clearly, many other parties do have a steak in further Europeanisation of HE:

1. Students, Employers and Professions. Student mobility in Europe will have (indirect) consequences for national policies. Increased mobility will demand increased coordination and standardisation at the European level. One of the consequences here has been the European Credit Transfer System, standardising the credit systems in European systems. In the future, the principle of non-discrimination might well pose severe obstacles for the discretionary capacity of states to offer free higher education for their nationals. The CPB report shows that most students aren’t very mobile and are not willing to go abroad to find quality education, but usually start their higher education close at home. I think however that – in due time – the European BaMa structure will lead to a substantial increase in mobility in the Masters stage, especially if the (financial) benefits of a prestigious ‘foreign’ Masters degree becomes more visible. With the increase in mobility of professionals there will also be more demand for standardisation and transparency in degrees and qualifications from the side of employers and of professional organisations (lawyers, medicine, accountants, etc). Simply said: increased movement and mobility leads to the necessity of coordination and facilitation of these flows. Be it flows of telephone calls or gigabytes or of students, academics, credits, services.

2. European Institutions. Many European rules have been created to coordinate and facilitate these flows. These rules were not at all related to higher education. Rulings of the European Court of Justice however, have had a substantial effect on the authority of national governments over their ‘own’ national higher education systems. In many instances, European law – that was not created to regulate higher education – indirectly affected higher education. Several ECJ cases in the 70s and 80s were related to education, revolving around issues like access to education for non-nationals in member states and eligibility for particular provisions and the relation with the principles of non-discrimination (for an excellent analysis, see Verbruggen, 2002, in Dutch). One of the best known examples of this was the Gravier Case.

Two points in the Court’s ruling of the Gravier Case were relevant to the European Community’s competencies in higher education. First, the ruling stated that a non-national student cannot be charged an additional fee as a condition of access if nationals of the host state do not pay the same fee. Secondly, by stating that higher education could be seen as vocational, the Court defacto extended the competencies of the Community, since vocational training was already part of the Treaty and related provisions now could also apply to (parts of) higher education.

The principle of non-discrimination together with the rules on the free mobility of persons, workers and services increasingly impact higher education even though they were not created to do so. The growing role of the ECJ in this ‘Europeanisation by stealth’ is illustrated by a recent example: the German medicine students in Austria. In this case, substantial national reforms can be traced back to ECJ rulings. Other national regulations on access to programmes might be proven to be counter to European law, like the case of French students applying for Belgian programmes in veterinary science and physiotherapy.

3. Universities. Universities will strategically try to lift coordination to the European level whenever they see benefits for themselves; in other cases they will ally with their national governments. The ‘European level’ creates an extra avenue for universities in which to operate. As a response they have created a dense network of relations with other universities in order to exploit – politically or financially – their European opportunities. With more financial resources spent on European initiatives, especially fuelled by the European Lisbon Agenda promoting innovation, universities will operate and cooperate more on a European scale in order to gain access to the financial and political resources. This lifts coordination up to a European scale directly as well as indirectly. Directly through the inter-organisational coordination of activities among universities. Indirectly through the emergence of an ever denser European policy community, existing of universities, university networks, intermediary bodies, resource providers and official EU institutions.

4. The European policy community in HE. The emergence of this European policy community in higher education has become a self-reinforcing process. The informal and formal networks and the numerous European organisations active in the field of higher education have all gained a vested interest in ongoing European integration. This is clear for official European institutions like the Commission, Parliament and ECJ, but it also goes for networks and organisations like the European University Association (EUA), National Unions of Students in Europe (ESIB), European Association for International Education (EAIE), Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), European Association of Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE), the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), etc. or inter-university networks like Coimbra Group, ECIU, LERU, the Santander Group, UNICA, etc., etc., etc.

The CPB might have found that there are not many reasons for increased European coordination. I think that this will not stop the Europenisation process. All in all, I think an increasing role of ‘Europe’ in national higher education is inevitable. The big question however is: who is ‘Europe’. Will the Commission and the ECJ take on the role previously performed by nation states in the coordination of higher education? Will it be an outcome of the interplay between universities, students, professions and employers? Or will it still be the member states, that are becoming more and more ‘Europeanised’ themselves. A mixture probably.

So, is it “time for coordination on a European level?” I think the question assumes too much agency, especially at the side of national governments. Whether it is time or not, it is happening. And it is not likely to stop.

The Guardian published the transcript of an interview with Anthony Giddens about New Labour, the Lisbon Agenda and labour market reforms. The message for Europe, or better, for Germany, Italy and France: a flexicurity model. Reform of the labour market and at the same time taking care of those who lose out. Here are a few of his statements.

About Lisbon and the European Social Model:

About the big three (France, Italy, Germany):

Giddens was interviewed on the occasion of the presentation of a pamphlet on the European Social Model. This pamphlet is a collection of papers of a group of European academics and the product of several discussions initiated by the Policy Network in July 2005. In October 2005, an ‘Open Letter on the Future of Europe‘, co-written by Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck, has been published in newspapers across Europe in order to stimulate a debate on the future of the European social model.

The papers will be published later this year but can also be found at 10 Downing Street (see discussion papers).

While I was looking for a file in my computer I stumbled upon an old document. It’s a file with a list of different perspectives and definitions of globalisation that I assembled for my doctoral research some years ago. I thought it might be of useful for students and scholars that are trying to grasp the possible meanings of the term.

It is a list of 99 (give or take a few) views from different disciplines and different sectors. Most are from academics, ranging from anthropologists to economists and from philosophers to business gurus. It includes statements from people as diverse as Bill Gates, Karl Marx and Vandana Shiva and organisations ranging from Greenpeace to the World Bank.

I converted the list into a website that can be found here (pdf also available).

If you think any perspectives should be added, let me know..