AlmaLaurea News
“The future of Europe is in our minds”Interview with Doris Pack, Chairwoman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education on the future of the European Higher Education Area.
“The AlmaLaurea system must be an example for the whole of Europe” claimed Doris Pack, Chairwoman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education in her address to the meeting on “Ongoing transformations and proposals of the European Higher Education Area” given in Bologna on 28th May last during the presentation of the XII AlmaLaurea Survey on Graduates. Pack went on to say “I think the system devised by the interuniversity consortium using tools it already possesses can play a key role in the Barcelona process and in building a Europe of knowledge”.
Can AlmaLaurea represent a turning point for the European creation of a knowledge society, especially in this period of severe economic and social crisis?
“It could and should become a turning point. At the moment the system has not yet been extended throughout Europe. It is active in Italy where it was set up, and in Morocco where the high quality of the system is reflected by the Grinsa Project (Graduate's Insertion and Assessment as tools for Moroccan Higher Education Governance and Management) implemented with three Moroccan universities and in collaboration with universities in the south of France. The programme funded by the European Union plans to set up a database of graduates along the lines of the AlmaLaurea model in the universities of Meknes, Marrakech and Oujda. The success of this initiative is proof that AlmaLaurea can play a leading role in Europe. AlmaLaurea can and must become a reference point, first and foremost for the Barcelona Process”.
What added value could a European AlmaLaurea have?
“Professor Andrea Cammelli, who has been running the Consortium since 1994, opened my eyes to the importance of developing this instrument at Euro-Mediterranean level: he made me understand that AlmaLaurea should be exported to Germany, France and many other European Union countries. The aim is to create an international network within the higher education area able to put graduates in touch with the labour market, thereby giving the international economy the chance to find the “right” person at the right time, encouraging mobility, research and the internationalization of knowledge”.
Are training, research and development the three pillars on which to build the European Higher Education Area?
“Without a doubt, training, research and development are the three “key” elements essential for the production of all future policies. These are the factors all countries in Europe and elsewhere should invest in, especially now that the international crisis has brought to light the true needs of our time. The current difficulties linked to the economic recession are making us understand something important, that is that our fortune, the future of Europe, is in “our minds”. This is why the training of human capital is essential: we must work to offer all possible opportunities to young people. In this sense, the presentation of the XII AlmaLaurea Survey on Graduates was remarkable: it gave me the impulse to move forward in building the European Higher Education Area tackling the challenges posed by the future one by one”.
As the crisis has been felt strongly by all major international economies, could this make governments renege on their commitment to build a European knowledge system?
“Ministers are always busy with a thousand other problems and have difficulty understanding the most important issue: giving people, first and foremost young people, opportunities. How? By favouring mobility: this is the key to allow graduates to grow and economies to find the right resources to ensure development. We must insist on this point, it is an unavoidable need. Each country may well have a large domestic market, but who will use it is there is no mobility? If degrees are not recognized everywhere, for example, if training and professional experience gained in Bologna is not recognized in Berlin? From this point of view I think that the Council of Ministers of every country in the world must promote the internationalization of knowledge policy solving problems as they arise”.
What problems must we tackle in building a European knowledge area?
“Training, education and research must return to being the focus of all government policies. How can the economy grow if there is no research? How can a country be competitive if it doesn’t invest in training human capital? Europe must fight. Each nation, in accord with all the others, must safeguard its skills, the fruit of its labours in recent decades. We cannot leave everything in the hands of other countries like Japan, the United States or China. Our chances of survival depend on these three factors. Despite the massive population decline in the number of young people, our overall target remains the same: to preserve what is in our minds. In this sense, I hope that politicians won’t talk about education and research to impress their public at meetings and then fail to allocate funding to either”.