Abstract:

Today, European universities in general, and Spanish in particular, are challenged to adapt their teaching and learning and their training programs to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

Specifically, and within the adaptation necessary reforms are addressed, the tutorial programs appear as an essential tool for universities and key to the integral formation of students. This kind of programs requires the completion of a serie of changes in the tutorial system that traditionally has been developed within the Spanish university.

To achieve this challenge, several Spanish universities have worried about generating and developing different activities and initiatives. The widespread implementation of comprehensive mentoring pilot projects is a clear indication of the bet that the Spanish university is doing in this field.

Despite the quality of the programs started, the level of requirement is high and there is still much to do in this regard. In Spain, the university lacks, in general, a longstanding experience in the development of comprehensive tutorials, and hence it needs a time to mature the measures implemented.

In this paper, the objectives are, first, to highlight the role of the tutorial program in the process of homogenization of university studies and, secondly, to show the main challenges faced by Spanish universities to adapt the tutorial actions. Finally, we present a tutorial model adapted to the EHEA framework and based on the experience of Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.

Keywords:

Tutorial program, mentoring, EHEA.