(De-)Constructing the global law school

The ‘(de-)constructing the global law school’ stream at the Learning in Law Annual Conference 2007 included the following papers:

• Sustainable globalisation and higher education – Nick Johnson (University of Warwick) read report below
• Bologna, Copenhagen and beyond…a discussion of the impact of the Bologna reforms on legal education – Maria Tighe (Leeds Metropolitan University) read report below
• Education for sustainability: do we have a choice? – Hugh Brayne (consultant) and Tracey Varnava (UKCLE) read full paper

Sustainable globalisation and higher education

“Sit someone at a computer screen and let it sink in that they are fully, definitively alone…Everybody sitting at a computer screen is at the centre of the world. Everybody sitting at a computer screen, increasingly, wants everything to be all about them. This is our first glimpse of what people who grow up with the net will want from the net.”
The Guardian, 4 November 2006

Facets of globalisation, in particular IT developments, the availability of cheap international travel and the freer movement of students, have transformed higher education over the last 20 years. Climate change is likely to put many of the features of this transformation into reverse – many grandiose schemes are likely to suffer the same fate as befell the dinosaurs.

Nick’s paper took its starting point from the Bruntland definition of sustainable development:
“development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Our common future, 1987). It then sought to apply that test to higher education and the management of universities in a globalised world facing climate change, with particular reference to the experience of overseas students.

In one sense higher education and scholarship are peculiarly fitted to the model of sustainable globalisation, and a global knowledge economy has developed through the Internet in a way undreamed of 20 years ago. Developments in e-learning also have their part to play, particularly with the carbon cost of travel. But the key issues remain the scarce resource of tutor contact and the difficulties of replicating the richness of real cultural contact in cyberspace. Some relatively older models of higher education, such as the Open University, may have much to teach us about sustainable globalisation.

However, new virtual forms and products familiar to the young will create new identities and cultural forms. The rapid growth of the Internet means that many students are now ‘digital natives’, whereas many teachers are ‘digital immigrants’. Study and learning methods are changing fundamentally – for example gaming can be used for exploratory learning, rather than being dismissed as pure fantasy. Social networking sites such as MySpace are used internationally to exchange information and debate issues, pointing to new forms of collectivism, creating forms of civil society without national boundaries.

How should higher education react to these changes? It is likely that the way academic and legal material is written will change, and that plagiarism will need to be redefined. Universities need to move away from pre-Internet models of learning, and may cease to have the sort of physical presence that they currently have. They need to clarify and develop their roles in producing, validating and disseminating knowledge.

Bologna, Copenhagen and beyond…a discussion of the impact of the Bologna reforms on legal education

Two Europe-wide processes are underway which could have significant implications for legal education:

• the Bologna process of reform of higher education and the establishment of a European Higher Education Area
• the Copenhagen Declaration, focusing on vocational education and training and promoting strategies for lifelong learning and mobility

This paper considered issues arising from these processes, such as lifelong learning as characteristic of professional/vocational learning, the increased articulation of ‘competencies’ to define standards and expectations in professional/vocational legal education, and the role of external stakeholders, the professional bodies and government in these issues. It looked at how, and to what extent, the two processes are influencing the development of professional legal education.

The Bologna process has cultivated a focus on outcomes and flexible learning, but there has been slow progress on areas such as lifelong learning, and experience still tends to be undervalued. There is an extent to which the Bologna process is seen as an ‘Anglo Saxon conspiracy’ due to the extent to which English models dominate, such as the two cycle degree, programme specifications and quality assurance.

As part of the Copenhagen Declaration the intention is to draw up a single European Qualifications Framework for transparency of qualifications, to have common principles for non-formal professional learning, and to promote lifelong learning in the professions.

Last Modified: 9 July 2010