Why an association?
The Universitaire Associatie Brussel (Brussels University Association) was formed as a result of the Bologna Declaration that was signed in 1999 by 31 European ministers. The ultimate goal of this declaration is the creation of a European Higher Education Area. Seeing that there are as least as many education systems in Europe as there are countries, the main concern is to make all these different systems more comparable and to gear them to each other.
In analogy with the Anglo-Saxon countries, the so-called ‘BaMa reform’ was introduced (BaMa is short for Bachelor/Master): starting with the academic year 2004-2005, students in Flanders and Brussels will no longer obtain the degrees of ‘graduate’ (gegradueerde), candidate (kandidaat) or licentiate (licentiaat), but will study towards a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.
The Bologna Declaration provides for an increased mobility of students, lecturers and administrative staff. University graduates will also become more mobile. Their employability will not depend entirely on their diploma supplement, but equally on their competences (including their intercultural skills) and their proficiency in languages. Consequently, the partners of the association pay a lot of attention to these aspects.
At the Flemish level, the Bologna Declaration was mainly translated into the decree on the restructuring of higher education adopted by the Flemish Government on 4 April 2003. This so-called ‘structure decree’ lays down the legal principles of the creation and operation of associations between colleges and universities. The distinction between non-university higher education and university education that used to be made in Belgium was at odds with the objective of international comparability. Consequently, there was a need for associations in which colleges teamed up with universities. The main mission of these associations is to seek a better collaboration between its partner members in the areas of education, research, provision of services and student policy.