CHAPTER 7 Tuning Up and Tuning In: How the European Bologna Process Is Influencing Students’ Time of Study

Constructing the Higher Education Student

“…Here, the complaints of students in our study strongly resembled those of the Danish students interviewed by Nielsen and Sarauw (2017) and Sarauw and Madsen (2020); the participants in these studies are described as viewing changes implemented as a result of the Danish Study Progress Reform as restricting their possibilities for learning, impoverishing their experience as students.…”

“…In the wider European context, increasing the 'employability' of students has also constituted a key focus of the Bologna Process and informed various national-level policies (Stiwne and Alves, 2010). Within Denmark, for example, Nielsen and Sarauw (2017) have argued that there has been a growing demand on the part of policymakers that students 'focus on and work towards their future employability from the day they enrol at the university' (p 162) and move through their studies quickly to enable prompt labour market entry.…”

“…The Study Progress Reform, also implemented in 2014, aimed to increase the pace at which students progressed through their degree programmes. It made use of a key feature of the Bologna Process reforms, namely the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) -an ostensibly neutral means of measuring a course's workload -to accomplish the country's own objectives, namely reducing the cost of education (incurred by the state) and ensuring that students enter the labour market quickly (Nielsen and Sarauw, 2017;Sarauw and Madsen, 2020). These objectives are in part achieved through regulating duration of study.…”

“…Alongside this, a modularised and competence-based curriculum has been introduced to promote the future employability of students, and students have been encouraged not to assume that they will automatically progress to a master's degree (as has been the case in the past). Empirical examinations of the impact of these reforms have suggested that students feel they are sometimes restricted to a superficial and instrumental engagement with their studies, choosing 'safe routes' through their studies, to maximise their chances of passing their exams and completing their studies in the required time (Nielsen and Sarauw, 2017;Sarauw and Madsen, 2020). Moreover, there is often a poor match between how 'study time' is understood within policy and by students themselves (Ulriksen and Nejrup, 2021).…”

The (stereo)typical student: how European higher education students feel they are viewed by relevant others

“…Other scholars have investigated the ways in which students are conceptualised by social actors such as policymakers, the media and the population at large. Within policy, students are increasingly positioned as 'future workers' -as a consequence, it is argued, of the primary purpose of HE coming to be seen by politicians and policymakers as labour market preparation (McArthur 2011;Nielsen and Sarauw 2017;Patfield, Gore, and Fray 2021). Dominant policy constructions do, to some extent, however, differ by nation-state.…”