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2.2 EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION AREA (EHEA)

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is a pan-European process, launched on the occasion
of the tenth anniversary of the Bologna Process, in March 2010, during the Budapest-Vienna
Ministerial Conference.

The EHEA has among its main objectives that of ensuring maximum comparability, compatibility,
and coherence between the education systems of its Member States, which are currently 48 both
part of the European Union and part of the Pan-European area of the Council of Europe. All this with
the aim of guaranteeing mobility and mutual recognition between training courses, both completed
and partial, to contribute to the growth and competitiveness of its member states.

The two fundamental tools for the implementation of the EHEA are precisely the Bologna Process
and the Convention on the recognition of qualifications relating to higher education in the European
Region. In this framework, several schools and educational institution are able to cooperate across
EU and are eager to do so in order to secure extra funding and opportunities as well as to enhance
and increase teachers and educators’ capabilities and tools. There is strong participation for vet

centres and adult education institutions in pan-European activities, including twinning activities with
similar organization across EU to increase EU community spirit and competences.

2.3 PORTUGAL - IGCAL
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In Portugal, many organisations participate in cross-border initiatives at European level or within
cross-border collaboration with Spain. These especially cover Erasmus, Interreg and bi-lateral
programs of collaboration between Spain and Portugal. Considering that many adult education

organisations in Portugal have been established to serve needs of small communities, in many cases
educators are focused on current local needs and lack broader international orientation. That is
among others reflected in low attention to developing their own ability to communicate in English,
limiting their potential to engage in international mentoring and professional development
schemes, as well as to follow the most recent development in adult education area, including their
metacognition skills.

In this situation while many educational organisations are engaged in international activities, the
engagement is often based on realistic involvement of single proactive individuals with the capacity
to communicate in English (and/or Spanish) and with more development and international
collaboration-oriented mindset. Many organisations struggle to disseminate the collected by these
individuals’ knowledge, due to lack of proper approaches to internal exchange of knowledge, but
also due to limited openness of some educators to integrate new approaches coming from outside.

In this reality, many organisations support and encourage the participation of their educators in
Pan-European development schemes, but especially in the interior of Portugal, the effect of the