A Europe-wide shake up of higher education is on the cards under the terms of the Bologna Declaration, which was signed by 29 European countries, including Ireland, two years ago.

The nations involved have all pledged to reform their higher education systems so that they become more compatible with each other - and hence allow greater mobility for students, staff and graduates and increase worldwide competitiveness. There are concerns that European universities are being bypassed by students from other parts of the world who prefer to take up college places in the US, Britain and Australia or attend US campuses based in Europe and Asia.

The ultimate goal of the Bologna Declaration is to create a European higher education area by the end of the decade. The first step in ensuring that European qualifications are "readable" and compatible will be to limit the time spent studying for qualifications. Undergraduate, master's and doctoral qualifications are to be completed within a particular time-frame - a total of three, four, five and eight years respectively. Since the Irish system largely complies with this model, the university sector is quite relaxed about it. In countries like Italy and Germany, however, it has traditionally taken seven years to acquire a primary degree. According to a report in the Times Higher Education Supplement, Norway and Germany are adopting the new model and Sweden and the Czech Republic have already done so. According to the secretary-general of the Swedish Association of Higher Education, "for degree systems, the Bologna process means the Anglo-Saxon system takes over Europe."

Here at home, however, the IT sector has particular concerns. "The two-year National Certificate programmes are an integral part of our qualifications' system," says Dr Gay Corr, director of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. "It is part of our ladder system which leads from certificate to diploma to degree. We are concerned that it would be protected."

Meanwhile, Dr Guy Haug, principal adviser to the Association of European Universities, who addressed the HEA's national conference on the Bologna Declaration in Dublin last week, denies that the declaration is "an instrument for the uniformisation of curricula, institutions or diplomas". The framework developed at Bologna is, he says, "for all qualifications. There is not a single word in the declaration from which one could conclude that it refers only to a part of higher education: the European framework for qualifications encompasses all higher education qualifications, including universities, colleges/ polytechnics and lifelong learning . . . what matters is not where a qualification was acquired, but what skills and competencies it guarantees".

The ITs are looking to the National Qualifications Authority to confirm the status of the sub-degree programmes within higher education. This could take some time: the authority was established on a statutory basis last February. However, the two new bodies, the Further Education and Training Awards Council (FETAC) and the Higher Education Awards Council (HETAC) - which will make national awards for all education and training in the State - have yet to be appointed, despite the fact that the National Qualifications (Education and Training) Act was passed in 1999.

"We should be getting our qualifications framework up and running," warns NCEA director, Seamus Puirseil. "The train is running and it will reach its destination, whether we are on it or not." For the universities, which have traditionally awarded their own degrees, the issue of autonomy is a major concern. "It is clear," says UCD president, Dr Art Cosgrove, "that if some of the goals of the declaration are to be realised, then there is a need for some compromise between institutional autonomy and the desire for greater European compatibility."

The European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) is widely regarded as being the best way to ensure Europewide compatibility of qualifications. It was developed in the 1980s to facilitate EU student exchanges. According to the Bologna Declaration, however, it should be developed to permit students to move from one level to another and could also be acquired in other educational contexts, including life-long learning.

Despite doubts expressed in the IT sector, UCD's Art Cosgrove is adamant that most Irish universities can produce ECTS scores for courses even when they are neither modular nor credit-based. "But will the universities perceive the declaration as pushing them towards a modular, credit based system?" he asks.

Quality is another issue to be addressed. "We won't get compatibility if we don't address the quality issue," Corr says. However, rather than having a super-European qualifications' authority, national agencies should work together to establish a European platform.

While there are undoubted benefits to quality assurance, there are also defects in our current system, Cosgrove says. If a quality review highlights inadequate lab provision and there is no capital funding available to rectify this, "the purpose of the whole exercise is called into question," he says.