The Bologna Process was launched in 1999 in Europe in order to create a “European Higher Education Area” with the goal of facilitating mobility and exchanges for European students among other European countries. (More here.)
The Spanish Ministry of Education is now considering, as a result of the Bologna Process, a shift in its higher education system. This shift would result in a new norm of a three-year “undergraduate” degree instead of the current four-year degree. (Although some Spanish degrees, such as those in Architecture or Pharmacy, take five years to complete and would remain that way.)
This proposed change has not gone over well with Spanish university students. The program, known as the “3+2,” has provoked outrage and huelgas (strikes) among students. The day of the education strike, students handed out flyers listing their objections to the new program.
The flyer (translated from Spanish) reads as follows:
1. Investment in universities by the Spanish Government has been reduced by 1,000 million euros since 2009.
2. The change from four years of undergrad to three years will reduce the content of undergrad and will force students to study a master, raising the price of university studies.
3. In 2015 four years of undergrad costs 8,000 euro; now with the 3+2 plan it will rise to 14,000 euro in first registration.
4. The rise in rates and the decline in scholarships (reduction of 275 million euro since 2011).
5. Each university will decide whether to implement the new model, creating inequality among universities.
6. Institutional chaos: there will be three university education models.
7. Reduction in the number of masters and the increase of these in private universities.
8. In Spain in 2009, 14.1% of the population enrolled in university studies, while in Finland, it is 20%.
The 3+2 entails: Elitization, mercantilization and privatization of the university.
Essentially, because the new system would not be mandatory, some universities would have three-year degrees and some would continue to have four-year degrees. The three-year degrees would be less competitive in the job market, making graduate school necessary. There would then be two years of graduate school instead of just one, and because graduate school is more expensive, the change would lead to an overall rise in education cost for Spanish students.
My professors all had different reactions to the strike. The day was, of course, not an official school holiday, but many students chose to participate and miss class. My Spanish Literature professor decided to cancel class that day in support of the cause. She clearly saw value in what the students were doing and thought the strike worthwhile. My Ethics professor allowed some student organizers to talk to our class for a few minutes and offered students the opportunity to leave and join the protesters with no penalties. My Law professor, on the other hand, failed to acknowledge the issue at all, as far as I could tell, and continued on with class as a normal day. For me, the fact that professors were involved on some level gives merit to the strikes that I might otherwise discredit.
There is no denying that the economic crisis has hit especially hard in Spain, and it seems that anything that will make Spanish students’ entrance into the job market more difficult is probably not the best idea. However, at the same time, I find it a bit hard to sympathize with the strike’s message. The estimated cost of university after the system change is 14,000 euro. While I agree that this is a huge amount of money, it unfortunately would not even cover a semester of tuition at Georgetown. I think American students could do well to learn from the Spanish and start explicitly expressing outrage over rising university costs and student loan debt.
According to an article in El País, a Spanish newspaper, “the ministry of education claims that families will save up to 150 million euros with the new plan of three years of undergrad and that it is not necessary to get a master’s degree to access the labor market.”
Samantha Gilmore graduated from Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service in 2016 with a major in science, technology, and international affairs. From Austin, Texas, she spent the spring 2015 semester in Salamanca, Spain, where she studied Spanish literature and blogged for the Berkley Center's Junior Year Abroad Network.
