The bologna process and its role for transition countries

There is a need for an introductory remark to one of key words of this paper. In the 1990s, a term, transition countries, or, countries in transition, entered political vocabularies to describe a number of countries on European East, mainly former socialist countries. It is rather obvious that this term is vague. Perhaps, it was originally invented for use in, diplomatic discourses: it looked like a neutral, and polite, technical term but in essence it was connected to fundamental social, political and econornic changes in a very large and diverse part of Europe. A term, transition countries, can be understood as a rather content,less term until we add more precise data on where are they, transiting, i.e. where are they, coming from, and, going to. Yet, the term is now widely in use, and we use it here as well, but with certain precaution. In this paper, it will be used to contextualise, higher education transition, of the last twenty years in former socialist countries in Central and East Europe.