Cover Erasmus.qxd 29.08.02 10:20 Seite 1 Ulrich Teichler (ed.) Ulrich Teichler (ed.) Ulrich Teichler ERASMUS in the SOCRATES Programme Findings of an Evaluation Study ERASMUS, the “flagship” among the educational programmes of the European Union, underwent substantial programmatic and structural changes when it became a sub-programme under the umbrella of the SOCRATES programme in the mid-1990s. The role of the centre of the univer- sity was strengthened at the expenses of the net- works of departments, and more emphasis was placed on curricular innovation, teaching staff mobility and on involvement of the non-mobile students. This study, being part of the SOCRATES 2000 Evaluation Study, aims to examine the changes occurred in ERASMUS in the late 1990s. It draws from available documents and statistics, and comprises surveys of students, graduates and academics as well as interviews with those involved in curricular innovation and “thematic net- ACA Papers on works”. The authors call for efforts to keep acade- Lemmens ERASMUS in the SOCRATES Programme ERASMUS in the SOCRATES International Cooperation in Education mics involved, to establish administrative proce- dures based on trust and to ensure a stronger role of curricular innovation. ISBN 3-932306-41-4 Ulrich Teichler (ed.) ERASMUS IN THE SOCRATES PROGRAMME Findings of an Evaluation Study ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education Ulrich Teichler (ed.) ERASMUS IN THE SOCRATES PROGRAMME Findings of an Evaluation Study Disclaimer This publication is based on the SOCRATES 2000 Evaluation Study. Chapters 2-10 of this publication are edited and partly shortened versions of the Evaluation Study. The SOCRATES 2000 Evaluation Study was undertaken by the Wissenschaftliches Zentrum für Berufs- und Hochschulforschung der Universität Kassel (Centre for Research on Higher Education and Work, University of Kassel) in cooperation with the Gesellschaft für Empirische Studien, Kassel, the European Institute of Education and Social Policy, Paris, and the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies of the University of Twente, Enschede. It was commissioned in 1999 by the Directorate General XXII Education, Training and Youth of the European Commission. The SOCRATES 2000 Evaluation Study has been prepared in the context of the monitoring and evaluation of SOCRATES. The Commission published the Study via Internet: http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/evaluation/socrates_en.html The views which this publication as well as the SOCRATES 2000 Evaluation Study contain are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the European Commission. Die Deutsche Bibliothek – CIP-Einheitsaufnahme ERASMUS in the SOCRATES Programme – Findings of an Evaluation Study/ ed. Ulrich Teichler – Bonn: Lemmens Verlags- & Mediengesellschaft, 2002 (ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education) ISBN 3-932306-41-4 NE: ACA Papers © Copyright 2002 Lemmens Verlags- & Mediengesellschaft mbH, Bonn Alle Rechte vorbehalten Anschrift des Verlages Königswinterer Straße 95 D-53 227 Bonn Telefon: + 49 228 42 13 70 Telefax: + 49 228 42 13 729 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://www.lemmens.de Umschlaggestaltung: Christian Padberg, Bonn Gesamtherstellung: Wienands PrintMedien GmbH, Bad Honnef ISBN 3-932306-41-4 4 Contents Contents Preface By Bernd Wächter . 7 1. ERASMUS under the Umbrella of SOCRATES: An Evaluation Study By Ute Lanzendorf and Ulrich Teichler . 13 2. Participation in ERASMUS: Figures and Patterns By Friedhelm Maiworm . 29 3. The Policies of Higher Education Institutions By Friedhelm Maiworm and Ulrich Teichler . 57 4. The Students’ Experience By Friedhelm Maiworm and Ulrich Teichler . 83 5. Employment and Work of Former Mobile Students By Volker Jahr and Ulrich Teichler . 117 6. The Academics’Views and Experiences By Friedhelm Maiworm and Ulrich Teichler . 137 7. Curriculum Development Activities and Thematic Network Projects By Anne Klemperer and Marijk van der Wende. 161 8. The Implementation of SOCRATES at the National Level By Stéphanie Caillé, Jean Gordon, Sander Lotze and Marijk van der Wende . 189 9. The SOCRATES Support Programme: Framework and Management By Ulrich Teichler. 201 10. ERASMUS – Observations and Recommendations By Ulrich Teichler. 217 Bibliography. 231 What is ACA? . 239 5 6 Preface Preface By Bernd Wächter When Professor Ulrich Teichler, the editor of the present evaluation of the ERASMUS part of the SOCRATES programme, enquired six months ago if the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) was interested in publishing the work of himself and his team, the question struck me as rhetorical. Need- less to say, I was enthusiastic. For several reasons. I shall state only two. First, the work of ACA has been closely linked with that of the European Union education and training programmes since its foundation in 1993. Most of its members – national-level organisations which promote and fund inter- national cooperation in (higher) education – act as the national agencies for various parts of the SOCRATES and LEONARDO programmes. ACA, as a European-level organisation, has been instrumental for some time now in helping the European Commission to implement the programmes at Com- munity level. In other words, ACA “believes” in these programmes and tries its best to contribute to their success. Second, ACA is also an organisation which is devoted to research into and analysis of education and training, and more particularly international coope- ration in higher education. It has its own publication series, the ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education, in which the present evaluation is published. Of its numerous activities, the evaluation of international pro- grammes is an important one. To publish an evaluation report of the quality of the present one and on a theme so “close to home” therefore seemed a foregone conclusion and even more so since the European Commission, strained for funds, felt that putting the SOCRATES evaluation report on the Internet was sufficient. But I agree with Professor Teichler: it is not. For the sake of precision, it should be noted that the present publication is a slightly revised excerpt of the larger evaluation report which Teichler and his colleagues produced in 2001. The original report investigated the entire SOCRATES programme. The present publication only concerns the ERAS- MUS programme, the higher education part of SOCRATES. I sincerely hope that this volume will find many readers. It was, of course, first and foremost written for the benefit of the European institutions, and the European Commission in particular. The European institutions need to know whether or not the SOCRATES programme attains the aims for which it was set up as a basis for possible programme adaptations. This is what they will find in this report at a level of quality rarely achieved. But the report also makes valuable reading for everyone else involved in the European educatio- nal project, and more generally in the internationalisation of education, be it at the level of national or regional government, in a research function, or at the level of those who benefit from the programmes, i.e. the higher education 7 ERASMUS in the SOCRATES Programme: Findings of an Evaluation Study institutions and those who use ERASMUS. They will find ample material to compare their own approaches and practice with those of their counterparts in Europe. The strength of this study is that it provides far more than a “snapshot” of ERASMUS in the first years after its reform. The material collected and ana- lysed on this period is impressive enough. But what makes this evaluation so valuable is that it can draw on the results of many previous evaluations – the vast majority of which were conducted by Professor Teichler and his team. The findings from these earlier works on ERASMUS, but also on the little remembered “Joint Study Programmes”, on TEMPUS, on the predecessor of the “Marie Curie” scheme for young researchers, and on many bilateral inter- nationalisation programmes, enrich the study in two ways. They enable the authors to put their new findings into a “vertical”, i.e. historical perspective, and they allow for “horizontal” comparisons with the results and impacts of other schemes. What are the main findings of the study? It would make little sense for me to duplicate the Observations and Recommendations chapter at the end of this book and the excellent and succinct summaries that serve as conclusions to most individual chapters. I shall nevertheless take the liberty to speak of a few key findings, but in the form of comment rather than recapitulation. Readers will easily realise that the issues I concentrate on mainly hinge on the major elements of the reform that the ERASMUS programme underwent when it was “put under the roof” of the wider SOCRATES scheme. If I had to distil a motto or leitmotif that encapsulated the most important message, it would probably be that ERASMUS is strangely indestructible. Teichler and his colleagues underline that the overriding tendency of the find- ings is one of continuity, despite the revolutionary fervour of the reforms of the mid-1990s. It almost appears as if the programme has a will of its own, which gently resists or cushions off initiatives aimed at massive change, be they inspired or misinformed. What I mean by these cryptic remarks will hopefully become clear when I reiterate and comment on the main traits of the reform below. One major change was that ERASMUS was incorporated into the larger SOCRATES programme. The creation of the two “framework” or “umbrella programmes” SOCRATES and LEONARDO was a hotly contested issue at the time. Those in favour argued that, in addition to giving visibility to the Union’s wider engagement in all sectors and thematic areas of education, the framework programme would also create “synergies” between these dif- ferent parts of the programme and thus create the basis for a more transver- sal, if not “holistic”, approach. Critics feared that the integration of ERASMUS into the wider structure would rob it of its identity, which was, they main- tained, crucial to the continued loyalty of programme beneficiaries and there- fore to its further success.