230,000 Catalan university students will start the school year in the new European Higher Education Area

Barcelona (ACN).- This Monday 12 Catalan universities began the 2010/2011 school year under the European Higher Education Area system (EHEA). A total of 233,538 students in 954 programmes will participate in the Bologna Process this year, 465 graduate studies and 298 masters. 18 million euros are expected to be invested in 2010 in order to facilitate the adaptation process to EHEA. From now until 2015, all  the degrees will be adapted to the new system. It is the first year under the EHEA system for 120 of the total of 465 graduate studies that have already adapted their programmes.

After a two-year transition period, all new university students are now studying within the new guidelines of the EHEA. A total of 12 Catalan universities are now offering 456 adapted graduate programmes, 120 more than last year. The two-year transition period ends this year with a new methodology for university studies. Catalan Special Commissioner for Universities and Research, Joan Majó stated, “we have been able to do this in only 3 years thanks to the desire to set up centres”. Until the year 2015, old degrees will be adapted to the new European system. 

Of all of the adapted graduate programmes that began this year, the programmes with the highest demand among students are the Universitat de Barcelona’s business administration programme with 1005 applicants, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona’s medicine programme with 755 applicants and the Universitat Politècnica de Barcelona’s architecture programme with 804 applicants.

Regarding the number of students, the Catalan Minister for Innovation, Universities and Business, Josep Huguet, stated that the 233,538 students who enrolled this year mark a new historical maximum “despite the demographic drop”. The number of lecturers has also slightly increased despite budgetary restraints. The 2010/2011 school year will see 15,486 lecturers give classes in universities. Huguet said that in these moments, with a ratio of 9 students per lecturer in universities, Catalonia is at the same level as countries like Finland. The Minister links this data to an improvement in the education system and the rigidity of the Spanish educational system that “impedes the reallocation of human resources according to needs”.

Public universities in Catalonia will receive a total of 905.2 million euros for the 2010/2011 school year, 2 million less than last year. The centre that concentrates the highest investment is the Universitat Politècnica de Barcelona with 20.5 million euros, followed by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona with 19.2 million and the Universitat de Barcelona with 12.2 million euros.

Huguet also spoke of the subsidy that the Catalan Government gives for every university that maintains 90.2% of its total university credit, making university tuition “free by de facto”.

The official inauguration of the 2010/2011 school year will take place on Wednesday, the 15th of September at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and will have the presence of Huguet as well as the president of the Catalan Government, José Montilla.