The Bologna Process: A Tool for Europe's Hegemonic Project on Africa

Abstract

This article treats the Bologna Process as a tool that European countries used for their hegemonic project on Africa's higher education. It is based on a normative perspective in which it is proposed that the creation of the worldwide higher education area should be a place of knowledge circulation where all scientists can collaborate in a free and open way, and that the ultimate goal of science is to make the world a better, easier and more just place. This article attempts to explain how the Foucauldian concept of 'apparatus' can help us understand the attitude of the European countries with regard to the Bologna Process and why, since 2003, they have not associated African countries with the process despite establishing relationships with other world regions. The article will analyse the long-term disregard of Europe for Africa and will show how and why the attitude of the Bologna Process' actors (especially the European Commission and the European University Association [EUA]) towards Africa has been evolving since 2007. Finally, this article will explain why the 3-5-8 or Licence-Master-Doctorate (LMD) Bologna model's transfer in Africa does not give fair results today. Regulation into the Worldwide Higher Education Area It is difficult to analyse the evolution of higher education policies without normative references, and without a prerequisite definition of what should be the best system of regulation into the worldwide higher education area. The argument in this article follows that of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). One could consider the expression 'the worldwide higher education area' deliberately provocative, because this area is still under construction and it is uncertain whether it will ever fully exist. However, since the 1970s, UNESCO has been trying to build such an area. It did this initially by the adoption of six regional conventions on the recognition of studies, diplomas and degrees between countries from the same world region; and secondly by the organisation of two world higher education conferences in 1998 and 2009. Some passages of the communiqué adopted at the second conference can be highlighted because they express the position of UNESCO and highlight the social responsibility of higher education that this article supports: higher education has the social responsibility to advance our understanding of multifaceted issues, which involve social, economic, scientific and cultural dimensions and our ability to respond to them. It should lead society in generating global knowledge to address global challenges, inter alia food security, climate change, water management, intercultural dialogue, renewable energy and public health. (UNESCO, 2009, p. 2) All the problems mentioned in the communiqué are global and concern all humanity. We can deduce from this that UNESCO's view is that higher education should be accountable to all humanity rather than to local communities or national authorities. The communiqué specifies that The Bologna Process: a tool ...

Policy diffusion and transfer of the Bologna Process in Africa’s national, sub-regional and regional contexts

“…The EC in its Tempus project promoted the Bologna study cycle to establish collaborations between the EU countries with their counterparts in other regions including Africa, especially the Maghreb. The BP action lines later became explicit objectives of the Tempus programme that established cooperation with third countries (Charlier and Croché, 2011). Thus, although many of the participating nations in the Tempus programme are not signatories of the BP, much of their work, through the influence of the EC, incorporates Bologna principles as part of an overall HE reform.…”

Process of transfer and reception of Bologna Process ideas in the Cameroon higher education system

“…The BP model also became attractive for Africa because it was seen as a tool for enhancing comparability and cooperation with the EHEA (Vögtle and Martens, 2014), so replacing ex-colonial networks with global networks (Westwood et al, 2008). However, the transfer of BP to Africa has been criticised as a tool used by European countries for their hegemonic project on Africa’s higher education (Charlier and Croché, 2011) as a form of recolonisation in disguise (Khelfaoui, 2009), whose adoption in Africa is informed by ex-colonial ties (MacGregor, 2008).…”