Hallo

Hard times for Spaniards

Introduction

During the summer of 2007 the Spanish mass media announced a possible economical crisis.
The unemployment became to rise, the IBEX 35 wasn’t in its bestmoment and the crisis was worldwide. For two years the Socialist Spanish Government adopted a set of measures such as raising taxes, but the situation kept deteriorating. Currently the recession istoo deep and the country is in ‘a crisis of huge proportions’, said the Foreign Minister Jose Manuel García-Margallo. The aim of this short report is to show the difficulties that Spaniards aresuffering due to this hard economic situation and that it is of critical importance to act as soon as possible.
We’ll highlight on this report two areas of concern: the problems with regard to universityeducation in the Bologna Process and the consequences of unemployment in Spain.

Bologna Process

The Bologna Declaration is an initiative to reform the European Education System.
The main goalsof the implementation of the Bologna reform process in Spain are to achieve a European Higher Education Area (EHEA), implement a European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System and compete with tophigher education systems in the world.
However, there is a controversy due to the fact that it has created a change in the degree structure in Spain with cultural implications. The dissatisfaction ofSpanish students can be seen in the demands shared by most of them. Among others, we can find the privatization of the university sector, the content oriented to the labour market or the fact ofmaking higher education more elitist. The need to attend more lectures, the emphasis on lots of hours of personal work are all very valid criteria, but they mean students can no longer combine work andstudy.
Despite the entire mentioned above, not all the messages about this process are negative. Bologna has also positive aspects as it promotes mobility and employability and it is meant to reach...