Geography programs and Bologna
also economic reasons, although these may perhaps be less explicit. The decrease in the number of years needed to complete the first degree cycle aims to save public invest-ment and family expenses with the formation and training of the students.
One major consequence of mobility expansion is an increase in competitiveness and consequently differentiation on the rank attained by each university and department.
Possibly we will see a relative standardization of the first degree cycle, offered in many places, although certain institutions can already be differentiated by their higher quality and a more limited and more competitive offer as soon as we progress to the higher degrees. The best diplomas, the most desired ones are only offered by a relatively small number of universities, the more central ones, the more attractive, those whose quality is ranked higher. Having more candidates, they can demand higher tuition fees, making more money they may offer better human and material resources. They will also help to propel its city to a better position in the system of cities.
In this context universities, departments and even individual courses and tutors will have to develop pro-active strategies, benchmarking practices, careful selection of strategic bets in terms of courses offered, learning experiences, teacher’s profiles in order to attract students and reinforce their prestige and quality.
In this competitive environment, Portugal’s main weakness comes from its geographical position and language, but the country also has some advantages tied to the high level of research and prestige in some areas, good climate and environ-mental quality, the advantageous level of prices and good relationships with southern countries, especially Brazil and some African countries.
To overcome the threats I would like to discuss the follow propositions:
• The ability to offer programs not only for the Portuguese market but also which can interest other Europeans too. Furthermore we should consider the important role that Portugal can have in the qualification of African and Brazilian human resources.
• Besides its contribution to research development and knowledge diffusion, univer-sities have the social responsibility of future citizen’s education and training.
Thus in the curriculum organization it seems important to consider subjects with social relevance, like citizenship and environmental questions, housing, planning at different scales, development and community action, to enhance geography’s contribution to the understanding and solution of the problems that affect our societies and are more able to interest youth, and have an immediate relationship with job opportunities and people’s daily lives.
• Another line for exploitation deals with the possibility of organising second cycle programs in partnership with prestigious foreign institutions and the introduction of English in some courses, both in the lessons and in student assignments.
Employability and competences
The Bologna’s declaration pretends that “the first cycle diploma will be relevant to the European labour market as an appropriate level of qualification” which raises confusion between ‘professionalisation’ and employability. Graduates employability and the competences they should have depend on their professional activity and its
requirements. In the faculties of Arts and Social Sciences employability is associ-ated with a generalist formation (made of a set of transferable competences and knowledge) useful for an enlarged and diversified number of activities and cannot be compared with a professional specialization. This can only be obtained with a second cycle program, at least with some depth of specialisation. The general and open features of the first cycle, as we see it, should not prevent some specific orientations for those students that already might have a specific professional activity in mind.
Since the 1970s the transformation of the Geography program at the University of Lisbon represents an effort to give the students a more solid professional preparation, specifically in the field of planning. This has been done through the reinforcement of the methodological component, the increase in the specialization possibilities and a better articulation with current professional practice. The concern with methodo-logical questions can be seen in the introduction of courses on statistics, quantitative methods, analytical tools, graphic presentations, cartography, GIS techniques and also epistemology courses.
In Lisbon, the actual model of curriculum offers five specializations and it has for the very first time some obligatory specific courses along with optional ones. These can either reinforce the specialization or oppose it, if the student prefers a more generalist formation. Thus, the program contains a common part for all students with 104 ECTS, distributed by Human Geography (36 ECTS), Physical Geography (36 ECTS), Methods (32 ECTS) and then the specializations. For instance, the students that choose Urban Planning (Urbanism) have to do 91 credits in specific courses like Urban Design, Physical and Social Environments, Urban Problems, Planning Tools, plus 45 credits in optional courses.
The bridge with professional practice has been tested by means of training periods, nevertheless only for the students enrolled in education is the training a credited unit.
For the rest of the students we use the th year course to bring the students closer to some activities by means of study visits or longer stays in appropriate departments and institutions and using this contact as case study for the assignment they have to do to complete the course. This report can have either a more practical (problem solving) or more theoretical orientation. The students enjoy this experience as we can see in the evaluation report (Barata Salgueiro et al, 2003), so it deserves more development and expansion.
Bologna also implies a different way to think about teaching and learning, almost a new paradigm which contains a different type of academic and training education, academic formation in a wider basis, focus on competence acquisition, and learning upon teaching. There is no doubt that the focus on these two last features will oblige us to think more deeply about the course structure and organization as well as the teaching methods in a completely different way than we use to. Competences will play a more central role in the way we think about teaching at the university (Cachinho, 2005). Despite the great number of our colleagues interested in these questions the discussion in geography departments is still in their infancy.
There is a good convergence between learning outcomes and competences. In the Tuning Project (Gonzalez and Wagenaar, 2003) learning outcomes are expressed in
terms of competences, they define what the student knows and is able to do at the end of his learning period, and are evaluated by performance levels. Thus they specify the minimum conditions to receive the credits. As we all know, there are generic competences which represent a dynamic combination of features, capabilities and aptitudes and subject specific competences characteristic of each field of study.
A study of 12 course proposals for the first degree cycle in Geography at the University of Lisbon, Oporto and Coimbra by teachers in the upper middle part of their career shows that the main goals were still stated in terms of scientific knowl-edge, despite their discourse. Student evaluation is divided between a final exam and the production of a project normally developed within a group with fieldwork.
However the discussion of texts, of political objectives and tools, of solutions for the problems analyzed already show a new orientation.
Concerning the generic competences differences are not big, although in Portugal they appear to be more connected to the specific knowledge mainly because of the material I used as source of information. Everyone agree on the need to be able to use ICT to communicate fluently by written, oral and visual means but it does not seem to be necessary to enumerate these competences in the context of a program proposal
For the specific geographic competences (Table 1) the Portuguese are more worried about action, with the application of knowledge in practice than with theoretical models, more interested with the concepts, the techniques of data collection, treatment and analysis, with the knowledge of different theoretical and methodological approaches.
Table 1. Specific Competences in Geography
At international level1 Portuguese teachers2 Understand and interpret landscapes, the
meaning of spatial relationships and build spatial models at different scales;
Understand the interdependence of social actors, of regions and locations; discuss the spatial policies and the process of territorial management;
Understand different forms of spatial organ-ization, the diversity and interdependence of regions, places and locations; the processes that lead to the spatial segregation, and the nature of change;
Identify patterns and explain the differences in spatial distributions; understand develop-ment disparities; interpret the process of change and its nature;
Collect, compare, analyze and present geographical information; use diverse tech-niques and approaches in Geography;
Appropriate use of geographical methods for collection and analyze geographic information; knowledge of different ap-proaches in the explanation of geographical phenomenon;
Apply and understand geographical con-cepts; communicate geographical ideas, principles and theories by written, oral and visual means;
understanding of geographical concepts;
apply geographical knowledge to identify problems and look for solutions, make pro-posals;
Sources: 1 – Internet sites of Herodot and EUnet networks, Tuning Program (EU), University of Liege and United Kingdom universities;
2 – Programs for courses in Geography in Lisbon, Oporto and Coimbra
Even though this only is a short and preliminary analysis, the collection of compe-tences is very impressive of the challenges implied in the preparation of a plan of studies and organization of a learning process in this basis.
Conclusion
Taking in account the importance Bologna has in the restructuring of higher educa-tion across Europe, I would like to conclude with three queseduca-tions:
1. How can each course contribute to the development of what competences?
2. How should we transform the process of learning and teaching in the context of a university that is more student-oriented, and more focused on competence acquisition?
3. How to start the discussion on the relationships between competences and knowl-edge?
All this leads to the need for discussing new methods of teaching, to exchange experiences and diffuse good practices and pedagogical experiences. So I would like to challenge the formation of a network for:
• exchanging information on the duration and organization of geography programs across European universities;
• opening the way to creating international diplomas coming from the partnership of several universities, eventually looking for some EU support to ensure their effectiveness and quality.
References
1. AMARAL I. 1980. Apontamentos para a história do ensino universitário de Geografia em Portugal, II Colóquio Ibérico de Geografia, Comunicações, Lisboa, vol I, 1982: 135−138.
2. BARATA SALGUEIRO T. 2003. L’enseignement universitaire au Portugal, Geographes Associés, 27, Universidade de Liège, 37−43.
3. BARATA SALGUEIRO T., BRUM FERREIRA D., SIMOES J. M., CACHINHO H.
2003. Relatório de Auto-avaliação de Geografia, ano lectivo 2001−2002. Lisboa, FLUL (policopiado).
4. CACHINHO H. 2005. Formação e inovação na Educação Geográfica. Actas do 2°
Colóquio Ibérico de Didáctica da Geografia. Lisboa. APG e AGE, 453−472.
5. CLAUDINO S., MUNOZ I TORRENTE X. 1991. A formação e a actividade profissional dos geógrafos em Lisboa, Barcelona e Copenhaga, V Colóquio Ibérico de Geografia.
Actas, Ponencias y Comunicaciones. León, 69−83.
6. GONZALEZ J., WAGENAAR R. 2003. Projecto Tuning Educacional Structures in Europe, st phase, in: www.relint.deusto.es/TUNINGProject/. Programs for courses in Geography.