Bologna Süreci, Avrupalılaşma ve TÜrk Yükseköğretimi: Alandan Bir Araştırma

1990'lı yıllar Avrupa'da siyasi olarak dinamik ancak çalkantılı yıllar olmuştur. Doğu Avrupa ülkelerinde yaşanan geçiş süreci Avrupa'nın siyasi, ekonomik ve kültürel olarak yeniden birleşmesini gündeme getirmiştir. Bu bağlamda eğitim ve özellikle yükseköğretim ortak bir Avrupa kimliği yaratmak için en uygun alanlardan biri olarak görülmüş, Avrupa kimliğinin oluşturulmasında üniversiteler arasındaki etkileşim önemli bir araç olarak kullanılmıştır. Ortak bir Avrupa Yükeköğretim Alanı ve Avrupa Araştırma Alanı kurmayı hedefleyen ve 1999 yılında yaşama geçirilen Bologna süreci bu siyasi yaklaşımın bir sonucudur. Bologna süreci kapsamında birçok ülkenin yükseköğretim sisteminde önemli reformlar gerçekleştirilmektedir. Ancak, Bologna süreci birçok kişi tarafından farklı yönlerden eleştirilmekte, akademik camiada sürecin felsefesi üzerinde keskin ayrımlar ortaya çıkmaktadır. Türkiye de 2001 yılından itibaren Bologna süreci üyelerinden biri olarak yükseköğretim sisteminde yeniden yapılanma ve Batı dünyası ile entegrasyon kapsamında reformları uygulamaktadır. Türk üniversiteleri birçok yapısal reformu başarıyla uygulamakla birlikte reformların içeriği ve Avrupa kimliğinin oluşumuna katkısı açısından soru işaretleri doğmaktadır. Bu çalışmada söz konusu tartışmalı alanlar ele alınmakta ve Türkiye'de Bologna sürecinin işleyişine ilişkin bir araştırmanın bulguları paylaşılmaktadır. Araştırma Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi'nde 2017 yılında 145 araştırma görevlisi ile gerçekleştirilen bir anket çalışmasını kapsamaktadır. Ana bulgular öncelikle araştırma görevlilerinin Bologna süreci hakkında yeterli bilgiye sahip olmadıklarını göstermiştir. Katılımcıların büyük bölümü Bologna sürecinin temel olarak ortak bir Avrupa kimliği oluşturma amacını taşıdığını, ancak henüz böyle bir ortak kimlikten bahsetmenin olanaklı olmadığını düşünmektedir. Benzer şekilde, katılımcılar Türk yükseköğretimini ve araştırmacılarını Avrupa Yükseköğretim alanının bir parçası olarak görmemektedir. Öte yandan, Bologna süreci ulusal kimliğimize bir tehdit olarak algılanmamaktadır. Araştırma görevlileri Bologna reformlarının uygulanmasını ise bürokratik ve aşırı işyükü yaratan bir süreç olarak görmekte, demokratik katılımın yetersizliğine vurgu yapmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Bologna süreci, Avrupalılaşma, Türk yükseköğretimi

BOLOGNA PROCESS, EUROPEANIZATION AND TURKISH HIGHER EDUCATION: A RESEARCH FROM THE FIELD

The 1990s were the years that Europe witnessed very dynamic and also turbulent times. Transition in the Eastern Europe paved the way for reunification of Europe in political, economic and cultural domains. Education, and higher education in particular, has been perceived as one of the most suitable means for creating a common European identity. Cooperation among European universities has long been promoted as a part of the European cultural project to develop the understanding of a European identity among the young generations. Bologna Process is the outcome of this political will declared in 1999 and aimed at creating a common European Higher Education Area and European Research Area. There have been significant changes in higher education systems of the member countries since then. Yet, after nearly two decades from its launch, the process is being questioned by many and higher education community deeply divided over the philosophy of Bologna. Turkey, as a member of the process since 2001, has also employed Bologna reforms for restructring its higher education system and for accelerating the integration with the Western world. Turkish universities succesfully implemented many of the structural reforms, yet the substance of the regulations and contribution of the process in creating a common European identity among the scholars are questionable. This paper focuses on these issues and reflects the views from the field by presenting findings of a survey carried out with research assitants in a Turkish state university. The survey was carried out in 2017 with the participation of 145 research assitants working in 10 faculties in Suleyman Demirel University. Major findings reveal that research assistants have little information on the process. Most of them think that the primary aim of Bologna process is to create a European identity, yet it is hard to talk about such an identity at the moment. In addition, research assistants do not perceive Turkish higher education and researchers as a part of European higher education area. On the other hand they do not think Bologna process as a threat to national identity. As for the implementation of Bologna process, it is seen as a bureaucratic process increasing the workload of academics which lacks democratic participation.

Keywords:

Bologna process, Turkish higher education,

PDF

___

Barblan, A., Ergüder, Ü. & Gürüz, K. (2008). Higher education in Turkey: institutional autonomy and responsibility in a modernising society. Bologna: Bononia University Press.
Bologna Declaration (1999). The Bologna declaration of 19 june 1999, joint declaration of the European ministers of education.
Cosar, S., & Ergul, H. (2015). Free-marketization of academia through authoritarianism: the Bologna Process in Turkey. Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research, 26.
De Rudder, H. (2010). Mission accomplished? which mission? The Higher Education Review, 43(1), 3-20.
Fejes, A. (2008). European citizens under construction: the bologna process analysed from a governmentality perspective. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(4), 515-530.
Hobolt, S.B. (2016). The Brexit Vote: a divided nation, a divided continent. Journal of European Public Policy, 23:9, 1259-1277, DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2016.1225785
Hoffman, D. M., Välimaa, J., & Huusko, M. (2008). The Bologna process in academic basic units: Finnish universities and competitive horizons. In Cultural Perspectives on Higher Education (pp. 227-243). Springer Netherlands.
Hunter, F. and De Wit, H. (2016). 21st century European higher education: responding to dynamic change. American Council for Education. International Briefs for Higher Education Leaders No: 6. http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/ACE-CIHE-Europe-Brief.pdf
Irwin, G. (2015). BREXIT: the impact on the UK and the EU. London: Global Counsel.
Kushnir, I. (2016). The role of the bologna process in defining Europe. European Educational Research Journal, 15(6), 664-675.
Laffan, B. (1996). The politics of identity and political order in Europe. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 34(1), 81-102.
Lawn, M. & Grek, S. (2012, May). Europeanizing education: governing a new policy space. Symposium Books Ltd.
Luhmann, S. (2015). The emergence of a european identity – there is an app for that! https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/7b91f7c7-84e7-45fa-b245- 388bc7ea5820.pdf
MCU (1988). The Magna Charta Universitatum. http://www.magna-charta.org/resources/files/the-magna-charta/english
Neave, G. & Amaral, A. (2008). On process, progress, success and methodology or the unfolding of the Bologna process as it appears to two reasonably benign observers. Higher Education Quarterly, 62(1‐2), 40-62.
Obst, D. & Forster, J. (2005). Perceptions of European higher education in third countries: outcomes of a study by the academic cooperation association. New York, NY: Institute of International Education.
Onursal Beşgül, Ö. (2016). Policy transfer and discursive de-europeanisation: higher education from Bologna to Turkey. South European Society and Politics, 21(1), 91-103.
Pantel, M. (1999). Unity-in-Diversity: Cultural policy and EU Legitimacy, in T. Banchoff & P.S. Mitchell (Eds) Legitimacy and the European Union: the contested polity, 46-65. London: Routledge.
Pechar, H. (2012). The decline of an academic oligarchy. the Bologna Process and ‘Humboldt’s last warriors’. In European Higher Education at the Crossroads (pp. 613-630). Springer Netherlands.
Praque Communique (2001). Towards the European higher education area. communiqué of the meeting of european ministers in charge of higher education in prague on may 19th 2001.https://media.ehea.info/file/2001_Prague/44/2/2001_Prague_Communique_English_553442.pdf
Reding, V. (2003). Address to the Berlin meeting of ministers for higher education, 17-19 September, Berlin.
Shore, C. (1996). Transcending the nation-state? the European Commission and the (re)-discovery of Europe. Journal of Historical Sociology, 9(4), 473-496. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6443.1996.tb00108.x
Sorbonne (1998). Sorbonne joint declaration: harmonization of the architecture of the European higher education system.
Strath, B. (2002). A European identity: to the historical limits of a concept. European Journal of Social Theory 5 (4) pp. 387- 401.
Todd, J. (2016). The UK’s relationship with Europe struggling over sovereignty. Switzerlend: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tomusk, V. (2004). Three Bolognas and a pizza pie: notes on institutionalization of the European higher education system. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 14(1), 75-96.
Vasilopoulou, S. (2016). UK Euroscepticism and the Brexit referendum. The Political Quarterly, 87(2), 219-227.
Veiga, A., & Amaral, A. (2009). Survey on the implementation of the Bologna Process in Portugal. Higher Education, 57(1), 57-69.
Vural Yılmaz, D. (2016). Bologna reforms on the field: views from coordinators at Turkish universities. Journal of International Social Research, 9(47).
Zgaga, P. (2009). Higher education and citizenship:‘the full range of purposes’. European Educational Research Journal, 8(2), 175-188.