Enhancing the European Coopeartion in the cultural management higher and vocational educational area

This Workshop is to look into the actual implementation and the future challenges that we all have to face in the next months/years in relation to the implementation of the Bologna process. This workshop targeted to ENCATC members and actors of the cultural training field will gather experts and representatives of international, European and national organisations. A first day will be devoted to the current evolution of the process. A focus on the specific situation in different European countries will be offered. In order to give operational tools and to initiate new collaborations, a specific workshop in partnership development at a European scale will close this event. The Bologna process was launched after 29 Education Ministers signed a Declaration in Bologna in June 1999 to reform the structures of their higher education systems. Each signatory country committed itself to reform its own higher education system in order to create overall convergence at European level. The process originates from the recognition that in spite of their valuable differences, European higher education systems are facing common internal and external challenges related to the growth and diversification of higher education, the employability of graduates, the shortage of skills in key areas or the expansion of private and transnational education.According to the Bologna Declaration, the following objectives have to be attained by 2010 in order to establish the European area of higher education and to promote the European system of higher education world-wide:
Adoption of a system of easily readable and comparable degrees;
Adoption of a system essentially based on two main cycles, undergraduate and graduate;
Establishment of a system of credits;
Promotion of mobility;
Promotion of European co-operation in quality assurance;
Promotion of the necessary European dimensions in higher education;

In May 2005 Ministers responsible for higher education in 40 European countries met in Bergen to take stock of the progress of the Bologna Process and to set directions for the further development towards the European Higher Education Area to be realised by 2010. ENCATC has the ambition to enhance this important debate and to actively support the priorities defined by the Bologna declaration.
In 2003, ENCATC organised in Brussels, a major workshop to look into the future challenges that we all are facing in relation to the implementation of the Bologna process. In 2004, ENCATC followed up this important debate. During the four annual board meeting, the Board members analysed and debated how the Bologna process affects the educational system in different European countries in particular in relation to the arts management and cultural training programmes.

In 2005, ENCATC continues to follow up this process. Therefore Encatc has organised already two National Meetings in Paris (France) in April and September on that specific subject. Encatc also co organized and actively took part in the conference Managerial training in the performing arts field, Bologna (Italy), with a specific focus on the Bologna process. Moreover, during the Encatc Annual Conference, Potsdam (Germany) a workshop was devoted to the Bologna Process at a European scale. Finally, the whole membership is also constantly updated about the results of this reflection as well as about the progress made in the implementation of the Bologna process.