Final Report Pilot Project - Relaciones Internacionales de la ...

the Tuning project that if the next necessary steps are not taken soon,
there is real danger that the objectives of Bologna will not be met, and
that the whole process will be compromised. Comparable degrees and
a division in two cycles imply that there is a certain agreement about
what is actually meant. However, this is not so as there is no accord or
common understanding about what distinguishes the two cycles. A
statement alone that there should be two successive cycles is clearly
insufficient to make degrees comparable and compatible on a
European level. This fact was already recognised by the seminar
organised in Helsinki in February 2001 about the bachelor level (first
cycle) degree, to which also the Prague Communiqué refers. The
conclusions of this seminar, which were accepted by the Higher
Education sector are twofold:
—the first degree should be seen as an entity in itself and
experienced as an appropriate qualification for the labour market;
—the length of the undergraduate degree should be 180 to 240
ECTS-credits (three to four years for full-time studies).
The outcomes of this seminar make clear that the length of degree
programmes in terms of credits is not an issue that stands on itself but
should be regarded as a crucial factor in the process of convergence of
higher education.
The role of competences and learning outcomes
The contribution the Tuning project wants to make to the discussion
of the length of degree programmes is that the focus should not be
limited to the overall system, but extended to the content, nature and
level of learning programmes. In that respect Tuning has drawn
attention to two important elements in the designing, construction and
assessment of qualifications: learning outcomes and competences.
By learning outcomes we mean the set of competences including
knowledge, understanding and skills a learner is expected to know/
understand/demonstrate after completion of a process of learning —short
or long. They can be identified and related to whole programmes of
study (first or second cycle) and for individual units of study (modules).
Competences, can be divided into two types: generic competences,
which in principle are subject independent, and subject specific
competences. Competences are normally obtained during different
course units and can therefore not be linked to one unit. It is however
very important to identify which units teach the various competences in
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