European Trade Union Committee for Education

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Today the ETUCE Committee adopted a position paper on the Future of the Bologna Process as it celebrated its 25th anniversary this year.

Ahead of the Tirana Ministerial Conference (May 2024), ETUCE’s Higher Education and Research Standing Committee (HERSC) representing higher education and research trade union outlined their demands towards the 47 ministers of the Bologna Process meeting attending. These demands underlined the importance of supporting academics in the Bologna Process, and 20 ETUCE member organisations joined these demands setting out their additional specific national priorities.

Trade unions in the higher education and research sectors request key improvements in the Bologna Process by requesting its member counties and the Bologna Follow-Up Group to:

• Continue encouraging the member countries of the Bologna Process to respect academic freedom, institutional autonomy and all other fundamental values of the Bologna Process, including public responsibility and student and staff participation;
• Improve focus on the public responsibility for higher education, especially the national responsibility to provide sustainable public funding for higher education, ensure the security of employment for academics and guarantee adequate and attractive working conditions for them.
• Continue respecting the role of stakeholders and their contributions to the Bologna Process;
• Acknowledge academics as core actors of higher education and research and provide them effective support in order to ensure that their professional knowledge improve the quality of all aspects of higher education and research, and reach societal goals through higher education and research;
• Acknowledge the trade unions representing academics as equal partners in the Bologna Process as decisions of the Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG) largely address the work of academics and have direct and indirect impact on their workload, working conditions and contractual situation and the future of their profession;

Please find the full list of demands of ETUCE here