Abstract:

Twenty first century Higher Education has witnessed an unprecedented change in the last decade. New waves of how to cope up with the job market have been among the top priorities in a number of countries all over the world. In Europe, for example, the answer came out in 1999 where twenty nine countries have gathered in Bologna to pledge for the necessity to restructure Higher Education in a convergent way. The aim behind such a gathering was neither to create a standardized system, nor to impose a reform common to all, but to unify efforts to face common internal and external challenges related to the growth and diversification of higher education.
However, what has affected developed countries in the structure of their functioning was common to developing countries as well. The employability of graduates, the shortage of skills in key areas, and the expansion of private and transnational education were some major prerogatives that explained the need to move to a new system of education.
The Bologna Declaration has been introduced in Algeria in the academic year 2004 - 2005 and has soon become known as the LMD reform (Licence, Master Doctorat). Thus, I have envisaged studying the different outcomes of the LMD reform that might be crucial to the academic success of our students. As a matter of fact, my research has mainly focused on the investigation of the different conditions of the implementation of the Bologna process, nationally known as the LMD system. The theory at hand has been to observe the benefits and shortcomings of the reform in order to touch the cornerstone of a successful implementation of such a restructured policy in Higher Education. I have entitled my research orientation “The Impact of the Bologna Process on the Algerian Universities”.
Algeria has always placed great value on Higher Education. The reform of the universities started, in the Era of Change, by placing the universities on a sector-based model and restructuring them according to a prospective vision that bore in mind the part they had to play in pedagogical renewal and in the production and dissemination of knowledge. By enshrining the administrative, financial, scientific and pedagogical autonomy of the universities, the government established another principle, that of democratizing the management of the universities.
The Algerian’s state policy is to improve teaching and push it forward at every level, so that educational and economic institutions interact. It also aims at reforming the universities as part of a prospective strategy that anticipates world change and scientific and technological progress. The national economic context has played a part in these changes by driving the dynamics of Higher Education to adapt teaching methods to the needs and aspirations of the society.
All along this research project, I will also try to bring a comparative study of the different activities I have undertaken throughout my field work. My visit to Nanterre University in Paris has helped in my investigation by studying the situation of Higher Education under the new Bologna Declaration. No doubt that a number of differences were observed in the field of practice, but the reform still needs clarity worldwide. In our context of Higher Education, however, Algeria needs to move a step forward in adapting the requirements of the LMD system to the unique needs of the country.

Keywords:

Bologna Declaration, LMD reform, Algerian Higher Education, Quality Assurance, Internationalization.