Higher aspirations: an agenda for reforming European universities

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITIES A EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION SPACE
upper secondary qualification. However, a numerus clausus may be set at the
national level or institutions may set their own limits in a small number of specific
fields.
We asked European universities in the 2006 Top 500 Shanghai ranking to respond to
a questionnaire which included items on student selection at the Bachelor and
Master levels 9 . Table 1 provides country averages for selection procedures at these
levels. It indicates a great deal of heterogeneity between countries at the Bachelor
level:
• Access is generally unrestricted in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands as well as in
Switzerland.
• A system of centralised selection prevails in Denmark, Ireland, Spain and Sweden.
• Decentralised selection applies in Germany and the United Kingdom.
By contrast there is much less heterogeneity at the Master level: almost all countries
have selection procedures, with the selection being decentralised at the level of individual
institutions.
Table 1: Selection of students by the universities in the sample (averages)
Country Bachelor level Master level
Selection
(1=yes, 0=no)
Centralised
System
(1=yes, 0=no)
Selection
(1=yes, 0=no)
Centralised
System
(1=yes, 0=no)
Belgium 0.1 0.2 0.1 0
Denmark 0.6 0.8 1 0
Germany 0.7 0.2 1 0
Ireland 1 1 1 0
Italy 0.2 0.2 0.8 0
Netherlands 0.3 0.8 1 0
Spain 1 0.8 0.7 0
Sweden 1 0.6 1 0.4
Switzerland 0.4 0.2 0.4 0
UK 1 0.1 0.9 0
Total 0.7 0.4 0.8 0.1
9. For details on our survey, see section IV.
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