The Anglo-American consecutive system has established a de-facto world-wide standard with its consecutive Bachelors, Masters, and PhD degrees. These degrees serve as widely recognised mobility enabling labels in the global educational system. They are especially suitable for promoting the international mobility of students and graduates. The European Union Ministers of Education and Science agreed in June 1999 to create a "European Area of Higher Education" and establish a "European System of Higher Education" (ESHE) by 2010. This agreement is called the Bologna Declaration. The ESHE is based essentially on two main cycles, undergraduate and graduate. Access to the second cycle requires successful completion of the first cycle studies, lasting a minimum of three years.
The degree awarded after the first cycle is relevant to the European labour market as an appropriate level of qualification. The second cycle leads to the masters and/or doctorate degree, as in many European countries at present.
Some European countries have reacted very quickly to the Bologna Declaration and have already changed their educational legislation (e.g. Germany, Italy) to implement it. In the transition period, university programmes in Europe will be a combination of the old and new systems i.e. we will see the coexistence of traditional "long" and "short" courses and consecutive first and second cycle courses. The formal compatibility of degree levels in traditional and new programs is shown in Fig 6.
