Issued at 31st of October 2011

5th Meeting of the BFUG Reporting Working Group

Riga, University of Latvia, 1st of July 2011, 09.00-15.30 hrs

Draft minutes

Participants

Austria Sandra KujanCzech Republic Věra ŠtastnáFinland Kaisu-Maria PiiroinenGermany Peter GreislerGermany Birger HendriksLatvia (Co-Chair) Andrejs RauhvargersLuxembourg (Co-Chair) Germain Dondelinger Luxembourg Claude SchaberNorway Tone Flood StrømSwitzerland Martin TeichgräberTurkey Armağan ErdoğanTurkey Prof. Metin Toprak UK/Scotland Alex YoungESU Allan PällEUA Ralf DrachenbergEURASHE Stefan DelplaceEuropean Commission Alvaro BordalloEUROSTAT Fernando ReisEUROSTUDENT Dominic OrrEURYDICE David CrosierEURYDICE Viera KerpanovaBFUG Secretariat Ligia DecaBFUG Secretariat Mario Ruse

Apologies have been received from: Belgium/Flemish Community, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Education International, ENQA.

Welcome and opening The host and Co-Chair (Andrejs Rauhvargers, Latvia) opened the meeting, welcomed the participants and made a few practical announcements.

1. Adoption of the agenda Document: Draft agenda The draft agenda was unanimously adopted without changes.

2. Minutes of the meeting on 16th of November 2010 Document: Draft minutes of meeting on 16th of November 2010The minutes were adopted without comments.

As a preamble to the following points, at the request of the Latvian Co-Chair, Mario Ruse (BFUG Secretariat) briefed the participants on the centralized situation of the 2011 reporting exercise up to the meeting’s date.

On this occasion, Ligia Deca (BFUG Secretariat) announced that the last BFUG Co-Chairs Handover meeting in Warsaw had asked for:

sending individualized reminders for countries who have not sent some or all of the seven online questionnaires, as there were spam filters that blocked the automatic confirmations and there might be countries that think they had submitted the questionnaire. The reminders should also urge a fast response in order to have a comprehensive overview for the Ministers in 2012;

discussing within the Reporting Group in Riga on the possibility of exporting the information sent by countries during the reporting exercise in a word/ pdf format for facilitating translations and administrative approvals.

For the first request it was decided that the BFUG Secretariat would individually email each country that had not sent some/ all online questionnaires during the first part of July 2011. It was appreciated that the questionnaires received beyond of 1st of September 2011 risk to not be included in the analytical part. A general reminder phrase would be drafted with the support of Germain Dondelinger (the Luxembourg Co-Chair) to be included in these individual reminders.

Concerning the second request, it was agreed to host the national reports on the EHEA website, while the technical details on how to aggregate the data in the seven online questionnaires filled in by each country would be discussed between the BFUG Secretariat and the data collectors, as the format of the online national reports was not the remit of the Reporting WG.

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3. Structure of the implementation report Document: Draft chapter structures for the implementation report

A general debate opened this point. As concerns were expressed by Martin Teichgräber (the Swiss representative) on the too large volume of the future report, David Crosier (EURYDICE) mentioned that - without having at this stage elements to approximate how many pages should have the report – their approach would be to keep the report as succinct as possible, while making other information which is deemed relevant publicly available in another way.

The Chairs underlined that the report should include an executive summary as it is very likely that it would be the main document read by policy makers. Its content is to be carefully analyzed as it would probably influence the Bucharest Ministerial Communiqué.

Chapter 1 (Characteristics of higher education in the EHEA)

In the context of a suggestion from Alex Young (UK/ Scotland) on developing a new indicator that related the number of students per capita of the overall population with the GDP, the Chairs asked participants to try to not reopen discussion on already discussed indicators as it had been agreed to not turn into a huge report.

Switzerland introduced in discussion the necessity of having more clarifications for readers (“how to read this report?”, what data is available and what is covered etc), given mainly the very frequent specialized information concerning the developed indicators. During the related discussion it was agreed to provide the report with a glossary and, whenever necessary, explanatory boxes.

Then, at the German representatives suggestion (Birger Hendriks and Peter Greisler), it was agreed as a general recommendation to try to preserve, when possible, the same definitions and reference points (e.g. the age brackets used for student population) in relation with different indicators.

Germain Dondelinger (the Luxembourg Co-Chair) appreciated that the executive summary of the report would be the right place to underline the relevance of various reference points and how they linked to each other because there might be a need to use different measurements units for different chapters.

The Latvian Co-Chair proposed to postpone this discussion on cross-referencing various chapters for the moment the Group would have a more advanced draft.

Chapter 2 (Degrees and Qualifications)

At Allan Päll’s (ESU) request the last indicator at point 2.1.1 has been reformulated as following: “Share of students intending to continue their first cycle studies (BA) in a second cycle (MA) (source: EUROSTUDENT).”

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Chapter 3 (Quality Assurance)

At UK/ Scotland’s request the first indicator at point 3.2.1 has been reformulated as following: “Guidelines and formal requirements for internal QA; involvement of stakeholders.”

Chapter 4 (Social Dimension): it was agreed to discuss this chapter under point 4 in the agenda.

Chapter 5 (Outcomes and Employability)

As a response to some participants’ suggestions for revising the order of some sub-chapters or to mix them with other sub-chapters, the Luxembourg Co-Chair pointed out that policy makers usually look at the figures, not at the text and that the data collectors/ the Reporting WG should make sure that on the chapter it would only focus on the issue at hand and not re-take the discussions from the other linked chapters.

At ESU’s request concerning the possibility of differentiating the data by gender (for the unemployment rate of tertiary education graduates as in the second and third proposed indicators at point 5.4), EUROSTAT answered that, in general, due to the small existing samples, this possibility does not exist for all countries, but particularly for long term unemployment this was possible.

Starting from Tone Flood Strøm’s (Norway) observation, it was agreed on the need of a special remark concerning the different typical age for graduation specific for Nordic countries and, in this respect, to compute the present indicator, where possible, with different age brackets.

At Stefan Delplace’s (EURASHE) proposal, it was also agreed to introduce an explanatory note saying that employability and employment are two different things and that employment depends a lot on the economic situation.

Chapter 6 (Lifelong Learning - LLL)

At Switzerland’s remark it was agreed on the difficulty in work with an exact definition on LLL, as varies heavily across EHEA member states, and on adding the ‘European Universities’ Charter on Lifelong Learning’ to the reference documents mentioned in the analysis.

It was agreed to clarify the difference between students and new entrants in the LLL sense, following an observation coming from UK / Scotland with regard to the 6.2 indicator.

Chapter 7 (International mobility of students and staff)Peter Greisler (Germany, Chair of the Mobility WG) made the following introductory comments:

the Mobility Group discussions revealed that the mobility of teachers is very important and this should be probably underlined in the draft mobility strategy;

as we face a lack of data on staff mobility, in the future it would be important to have comprehensive data and a perspective on how this will be achieved;

as part of this data, a top priority would be the number of foreign teachers, if possible from the entire EHEA or at least from the EU.

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EUROSTAT explained that they had tried to compute the percentage of foreign staff in the total number of academic staff (ACA was working on this, but the samples were so small that it was difficult to compute EU wide). An aggregate value for a region might be possible.

The Luxembourg Co-Chair appreciated that a regional aggregate value would be very useful and that we need to embark on measuring at least what we can.

EUROSTAT agreed that they would try to compute in the future a relevant indicator related to foreign academic staff as a percentage of the total staff numbers in the EU (but not by countries) and if possible in a broader scope.

Armağan Erdoğan (Turkey) asked if it would be also possible to add data from the countries where it is available, even if the country is not a part of the EU.

Peter Greisler answered that if the Mobility WG would receive the data, it would be able to consider it in the analysis.

EUROSTAT mentioned that given the already launched data collection for non-EU countries, it would be difficult to add this question. Turkey had been already included in the EUROSTAT data collection. However, EUROSTAT could include data for some big countries outside of the EU.

ESU underlined that if a classification of countries is made according to mobility flows, the data collectors should also try to analyse the reasons for falling in one category or another, while making a link to conclusions in other chapters of the report.

The Chairs answered that it might be rather difficult to link mobility issues with some other Bologna action lines (e.g. one could not say for sure that mobility flows were not high due to existence/ inexistence of QFs), since many influential factors on mobility are outside EHEA (e.g. politics, economics etc). As a result cross-referencing here would have its limits.

Dominic Orr (EUROSTUDENT) observed that it was easier to relate short term mobility to several Bologna action lines and that for degree mobility it was difficult to speculate.

4. Draft Chapter on Social dimension Documents: Presentation of draft chapter by data collectors

David Crosier (EURYDICE) presented the approach adopted in drafting this chapter while underlining that this was the first draft and the data collectors were waiting for comments including opinions whether this was in line with the Group members’ expectations.

The Luxembourg Co-Chair appreciated it as a good chapter that replies to the main questions and could maybe be a bit shorter, by mentioning some matters once and not several times through the text.

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Birger Hendriks (Germany) praised the very good and logical approach. If some good practice examples may be included, it would be worth sharing the relevant experience across the EHEA.

Given the difficulties in reading the comparative data, the Swiss representative argued for having a Bologna reference median line, as done in the past. This would facilitate an analysis focused on countries under the line and avoiding to have a lot of information about the same countries (e.g. DE, UK/ Scotland and UK in general).

The Latvian Co-Chair agreed on avoiding the impression of using the same country examples by, for example, adding “and others” to the list of countries mentioned.

UK/ Scotland observed that there are several figures/ paragraphs in the chapter that only characterized the EU27 and recommended to always start with the situation in the EHEA and then explain the reasons of using the EU as a proxy, when needed.

Switzerland proposed the addition of a conclusion at the end of each sub-chapter.

Summarizing the discussions for the Social Dimension draft Chapter, the Chairs concluded on:- Avoiding repetitions;- Making sure that information from Chapter 1 is not repeated here;- Adding the Bologna median line whenever possible;- Adding Case studies, where appropriate;- Concentrating on/ starting with the EHEA in the drafting of various parts of the analysis,

even if EU27 is used as a proxy;- Looking into how exemplification can be diversified;- Inserting chapters’ conclusions for the next meeting and not have conclusions for each sub-

chapter.

5. Scorecard indicatorsDocuments: Presentation on indicators proposed for scorecard

The Latvian Co-Chair underlined that the intention was to preserve the old indicators as much as possible, but due to the more information included in the new data collection exercise, some stocktaking indicators might differ. Then he briefly introduced to all participants these new indicators by highlighting the changes occurred, where appropriate.

Main comments on indicators:

Indicator 2 At Peter Greisler’s request the Latvian Co-Chair agreed on introducing a footnote explaining what access means in this context.

Indicator 4 Peter Greisler (Germany) expressed his doubts about including some of the elements in the indicator, as they might not be part of the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG) and would thus not reflect the commitment made by ministers.

ESU expressed doubts about how applying the ESG for the entire national QA system can be measured, as the ESG are used only for assessing national quality assurance agencies (QAAs)

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and higher education institutions (HEIs). Also, they wonder about how ‘successfully’ would be quantified in this case.

The Latvian Co-Chair mentioned that in the data collection questionnaire, “successful” had been definitely used and thus countries already gave a reply implying an assessment. He also conclude that the wording can be changed by replacing “QA system” with “QA agency” for this indicator.

UK/ Scotland proposed to replace the first bullet with “Teaching and learning”, instead of just “teaching”. This was agreed by the Chairs.

The Co-Chair (Germain Dondelinger) underlined that if the political decisions did not bring any new elements to the ESG, the Group cannot add elements which are not included in the ESG to the stocktaking exercise.

David Crosier (EURYDICE) said that if the Group would go back to the former indicator in stocktaking, it would not use what it had been already collected in the questionnaires and if the Group just wanted to construct a theoretical indicator, the data collectors might not have the data to support it.

EURASHE affirmed that if the ESG would be revised, it would be interesting to see the new elements which were already mentioned by countries in the reporting questionnaires.

The Luxembourg Co-Chair said that the ministers would not decide on the indicators proposed by the Reporting Group, but that they do decide the referential, so politically speaking it is difficult to just upgrade the definition of QA implementation.

The Latvian Co-Chair underlined that if the Group would decide to not take this indicator, we might have to drop it altogether, as there was no data for the former indicator. He added that the elements that were included in the indicator might be founded in the part of the ESG referring to internal QA.

Ralf Drachenberg (EUA) commented that having no scorecard indicators on mobility and social dimension was illogical, since the political priorities had changed and the Group was not focusing on only the same issues as 10 years ago.

The Latvian Co-Chair reminded that there had been a statement by the BFUG for not changing the previous indicators, so it would be difficult to just add new ones.

The Luxembourg Co-Chair concluded that for 2015 we might need to warn the BFUG to add new indicators for 2015. A material will be proposed in this sense to the BFUG members for discussion at the Cracow BFUG meeting in October.

ESU appreciated that it the Group should clarify the role of ENQA and EQAR. He also affirmed that the indicator should stand as it is currently built.

Norway proposed to separate issues which were in the ESG from those that were not.

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Věra Štastná (Czech Republic) mentioned that the ministers had decided that HEIs missions should be differentiated, so extending the QA focus from teaching to other issues as well was logical and that this message chould be sent with this data collection exercise.

Birger Hendriks (Germany) proposed to just take out “research” from the indicator and keep it as it stood.

The Chairs concluded that the indicator would be sent for BFUG approval or dismissal, while warning about possibly going beyond the ministerial mandate given through the ESG.

Indicator 6 would be modified slightly, by rephrasing the second bullet point as following: “agencies are full members of ENQA”.

Indicator 7The Chairs concluded that all references including the word “some” would be verified with the old indicator and will possibly be made more explicit.

The Latvian Co-Chair announced that between the present 7th and 8th indicators there had been in 2009 a scorecard indicator on the implementation of the Lisbon Recognition Convention (LRC), which was deleted, due to the ratification of the LRC by all EHEA members. This decision to delete this indicator needs to be ratified by the BFUG.

Starting from the Czech Republic proposal concerning the strong need for improvements in the field of recognition, during a complex discussion that followed, the issue of whether to develop or not new stocktaking indicators was debated. At its end, the Luxembourg Co-Chair concluded that for 2015 the Bologna Process would need to come up with something more effective in the field of recognition and a proposal in this respect should be presented in the BFUG.

6. Mobility benchmark

Peter Greisler as Chair of the Mobility Group, presented the status of the Mobility WG activities.

In this respect he mentioned that: the Mobility WG had discussed the long version of the draft Working paper of the Mobility

Strategy 2020 for EHEA and that another discussion would take place during the meeting on 24th of August 2011. The updated version would be sent to the BFUG;

the present long version would be soon available and the BFUG Secretariat would circulated it to all Reporting Group’s members and to all other Chairs of the BFUG WGs / Networks;

the next step would be to draft a shorter version that, after being debated during the same meeting on 24th of August by the Mobility WG, would be circulated to the BFUG and would possibly be endorsed by the EHEA Ministers.

Peter Greisler continued by adding few comments relevant for data collection as following: through this draft the Mobility WG would propose to add a benchmark on incoming student

mobility to the existing EHEA benchmark. The benchmark could be phrased as “by 2020,

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5% of all students matriculated in the EHEA should have obtained their prior qualification elsewhere”;

the Mobility WG would provide a list of information that the data collectors should provide in the future, additional to what was collected for the benchmark.

With regard to the issue of balanced mobility, Peter Greisler briefly described the difficulties the Group had faced and announced the conclusion reached for a recommendation to the Bucharest communiqué, namely: “We strive for open education systems and better balanced mobility in the EHEA.”

The speaker underlined that the demand for more balanced mobility is focused at degree mobility and it had to be combined with the approach of avoiding the “closed” systems (systems that do not send or receive mobile students). The Group had also recalled the need to record and analyse the mobility streams systematically, regularly and in accordance with comparable principles. It was argued that this is especially important for degree mobility. These provisions are meant to provide an improved frame for ministers’ decision in the future.

The Luxembourg Co-Chair appreciated the information provided, while underlining that the Mobility Group has to give a special attention to the issue of brain drain.

David Crosier (EURYDICE) observed that the percentage of incoming students should be rather compared to the global total share of mobile students, not to the total number of EHEA graduates, as otherwise there would be no control over reaching the proposed benchmark due to the possible changes in the global numbers of mobile students.

EUROSTAT briefed the participants on recent developments concerning the EU mobility benchmark. The main points touched upon were: the technical proposal made by the European Commission was very much in line with the

Bologna Process’ approach (i.e. the same benchmark of 20 % for HE mobility); the small difference is that the Commission proposal was considering all destination for

mobile students to graduate in (not just the EHEA as with the ‘Bologna’ benchmark); the EU mobility definition has many similarities with ERASMUS definition of mobility

(three months minimum duration for academic mobility and two months minimum duration for mobility placements);

the next step would be a discussion in the Council, which has the authority to adopt an EU benchmark on mobility;

there was a dialogue between the specialized structures of the Commission and of the Bologna Process in the attempt of keeping the same line for mobility benchmarks, definitions and indicators for higher education;

given the reluctance of the national statistical offices for collecting data on credit mobility, EUROSTAT is considering to use of the LLP national agencies for collecting data on mobility by expanding the current scope of these institutions. This long term and difficult process would have clear results by 2020 and possible results, depending on the negotiations with the countries’ statistical offices, by 2015.

7. Reporting to BFUG at the meeting in Krakow 13-14 October 2011

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The Latvian Co-Chair announced that the next Reporting Group meeting will take place on 3rd of November 2011, at the Luxembourg Brusssels representation.

The Latvian Co-Chair also informed the participants that for the next BFUG meeting the Group would have to present the scorecard indicators to be used for the 2012 Bucharest Report. There would be no draft report presentation, but a presentation of the progress made in its drafting (e.g. structure). A paper would be prepared in this regard by the WG’s Co-Chairs and sent to the BFUG to be discussed during the Krakow BFUG meeting.

Birger Hendriks (Germany) expressed the opinion that it should be explained in which BFUG meeting the first draft of the report would be presented to be discussed.

At this point Ligia Deca (BFUG Secretariat) underlined the importance of receiving the recommendations for the Bucharest Communiqué that should be included in the 2012 Bucharest Report as soon as possible. Initially it was thought draft recommendations would be presented in Krakow and so the Bucharest Communiqué roadmap starts right after the BFUG meeting. The first draft of the Bucharest Communiqué will be drafted, in light of the new developments, according to the existing conclusions and recommendations of the BFUG WG/ networks, but it is essential that the 2012 Bucharest Report conclusions and recommendations are available at the January 2012 BFUG meeting. If these conclusions would come in later than January 2012, the timeframe for the BFUG to react to these conclusions and finalise the communiqué negotiations would be extremely short..

The Luxembourg Co-Chair expressed his reluctance on presenting any conclusions before the Group meeting from November 3, 2011, but agreed to have conclusions ready by the BFUG meeting in January 2012.

David Crosier (EURYDICE) stated that during the January BFUG meeting there would be the first presentation of the findings of the Reporting exercise and the reccomendations that should be part of the Communiqué from the side of the Reporting WG.

8. Any other business

The Latvian Co-Chair thanked the participants and then declared the meeting closed.

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