Abstract:

Probably, one of the most compelling challenges of the European Higher Education Area, and a key point for its success is the proper functioning of the tutoring. Tutoring, in terms of academic guidance and personal assessment of students, has in fact always been a feature of university education in Spain in one form or another, since it was introduced by General Education Law of 1970, which considered the tutor as a means of trying to “personalise” overcrowded lecture halls. However, following the 1998 Declaration of Bologna, which outlines the new model of European university education, instead of being a necessary but residual factor, tutoring will become one of the basic elements of the new education system and an essential tool in the development of the new methodology to achieve the goals set out by the EHEA.

In this paper we show some thoughts about the role this institution is bound to play in the EHEA’s scheme. Afterwards we propose a specific tutoring model, aimed at implementing Bologna’s methodology, taking into account the ten-year experience in this field achieved as a result of applying the British tutorial system in the E.T.S.I. Agrónomos of Universidad Politécnica of Madrid. It seems clear that in the debate about these issues, the role of tutoring in the teaching staff is well defined, but not so much from the student’s viewpoint. We deem important to help the student not only in achieving the skills and competences required in the future labour market, but also the ones aiming at developing other human features, such as ethical behaviour, social and inter personal relationships, tolerance, leadership, social commitment and environmental issues. Consequently, such is the model we propose.

Keywords:

teaching innovation, horizontal tutoring, transferable or generic competences, engineering, bologna.