The Implementation of the Erasmus Mundus Programme
HENDERSON, TYLER (2006)
HENDERSON, TYLER
2006
Hallintotiede - Administrative Science
Kauppa- ja hallintotieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Economics and Administration
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2006-08-31
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:uta-1-16820
https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:uta-1-16820
Tiivistelmä
The focus of this study is on Erasmus Mundus, a higher education initiative that was proposed to the European Commission in 2002, approved by the European Commission in 2003 and commenced by the European Commission in 2004. The basic premise of Erasmus Mundus is to increase the competitiveness of European higher education by attracting top graduate students from around the world to joint master’s courses involving study in two or more European universities in two or more European countries. This is likely the first analysis of the Erasmus Mundus programme of this length and is designed to comment more on higher education practice than on higher education theory. In support of this design, the main research question that this study attempts to answer is, in the first year of Erasmus Mundus, do the practical aspects of the programme reflect a progression towards its prescribed objectives?
A summary of four initiatives dealing with higher education in Europe in the last two decades is presented to provide a recent history of European higher education mobility, to show the higher education environment out of which Erasmus Mundus was created and to show from where the Erasmus Mundus programme objectives developed. In order to provide information for a new analysis, data was collected from two different groups involved in the first year of the Erasmus Mundus programme. The first group was the course coordinators representing the inaugural set of courses selected into the Erasmus Mundus programme in 2004. The second group was the inaugural cohort of Erasmus Mundus students involved in the “Higher Education Erasmus Mundus” course, who studied in Norway, Finland and Portugal between 2004 and 2006.
In order to understand the institutional level perspective on the Erasmus Mundus objectives, a questionnaire was completed by course coordinators with a line of questioning focusing on issues related to their course’s transition into the programme. Furthermore, in order to understand the practical ways in which the objectives of Erasmus Mundus are interpreted at the student level, students in the Higher Education Erasmus Mundus were interviewed and asked to respond to a short survey. The students were presented with the programme’s objectives and were asked to reflect on how they interpreted the objectives related to their specific course.
The nature of this study resulted in data from course coordinators and students that was extremely diverse and somewhat difficult to consolidate in a meaningful way. However, within the context of the Erasmus Mundus objectives, clear findings did emerge. At the institutional level, an analysis of the data showed a struggle by courses to find ways to implement their course in a common way within a joint degree model that includes higher education institutions and national higher education systems that still have little commonality. This is the case even a more recently convergent European higher education area. This struggle was seen most notably in relation to the role of tuition fees in Erasmus Mundus courses, the design of mobility plans and the role of new language acquisition. At the student level, an analysis of the data showed that students recognised the certain amount of uncertainty that comes with taking part in a joint degree course that is predicated on consistent mobility and intensified levels of higher education institution cooperation and that students were grappling with the advantages and disadvantages of a joint degree model versus a single institution degree model.
Keywords: steering, implementation, joint degree, Erasmus Mundus
A summary of four initiatives dealing with higher education in Europe in the last two decades is presented to provide a recent history of European higher education mobility, to show the higher education environment out of which Erasmus Mundus was created and to show from where the Erasmus Mundus programme objectives developed. In order to provide information for a new analysis, data was collected from two different groups involved in the first year of the Erasmus Mundus programme. The first group was the course coordinators representing the inaugural set of courses selected into the Erasmus Mundus programme in 2004. The second group was the inaugural cohort of Erasmus Mundus students involved in the “Higher Education Erasmus Mundus” course, who studied in Norway, Finland and Portugal between 2004 and 2006.
In order to understand the institutional level perspective on the Erasmus Mundus objectives, a questionnaire was completed by course coordinators with a line of questioning focusing on issues related to their course’s transition into the programme. Furthermore, in order to understand the practical ways in which the objectives of Erasmus Mundus are interpreted at the student level, students in the Higher Education Erasmus Mundus were interviewed and asked to respond to a short survey. The students were presented with the programme’s objectives and were asked to reflect on how they interpreted the objectives related to their specific course.
The nature of this study resulted in data from course coordinators and students that was extremely diverse and somewhat difficult to consolidate in a meaningful way. However, within the context of the Erasmus Mundus objectives, clear findings did emerge. At the institutional level, an analysis of the data showed a struggle by courses to find ways to implement their course in a common way within a joint degree model that includes higher education institutions and national higher education systems that still have little commonality. This is the case even a more recently convergent European higher education area. This struggle was seen most notably in relation to the role of tuition fees in Erasmus Mundus courses, the design of mobility plans and the role of new language acquisition. At the student level, an analysis of the data showed that students recognised the certain amount of uncertainty that comes with taking part in a joint degree course that is predicated on consistent mobility and intensified levels of higher education institution cooperation and that students were grappling with the advantages and disadvantages of a joint degree model versus a single institution degree model.
Keywords: steering, implementation, joint degree, Erasmus Mundus