Transcript The European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR)

European Quality Assurance
Register for Higher Education
Quality Assurance
in the EHEA (Bologna Process)
Prof. Andreas G. Orphanides
President, Board of EQAR
Rector, European University Cyprus
Vice-President, EURASHE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ASEM Conference
“Quality Assurance and Recognition in Higher Education: Challenges and Prospects”
6-7 December 2010, Mediterranean Beach Hotel, Limassol, Cyprus
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Quality Assurance in the EHEA (Bologna Process)
2. European Standards and Guidelines for Quality
Assurance (ESG)
3. European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR)
4. Application criteria and process
5. How the Register is used at national level
Quality in the Bologna
Process
Primary
responsibility of
HE institutions
Cooperation of for quality
QA agencies and
HE institutions
European Standards and
Guidelines
European
Register of QA
cooperation in
agencies
E4
Group
quality
assurance
1999
2001
2003
2005
2007
Bologna
Prague
Berlin
Bergen
London
Founding
of EQAR
2008
European Standards and
Guidelines for Quality
Assurance (ESG)
 Common reference points for quality assurance
of higher education
 To enhance comparability of QA in Europe
 To facilitate mutual trust and recognition of QA as well
as qualifications
 Encompassing the diversity of higher education
systems in Europe
 Agreed shared principles
 No detailed norms
 No checklist
ESG – development and
structure
 Developed by the E4 Group
 QA agencies (ENQA)
 Higher education institutions (EUA, EURASHE)
 Students (ESU)
 Agreed by the Bologna Process (2005) ministers
 Central responsibility of higher education institutions for their
quality (see also Berlin Communiqué, 2003)
Part 3:
External
QA agencies
Part 2:
External
QA of HEIs
Part 1:
Internal
QA by HEIs
ESG part 1 – overview
ESG for the internal quality assurance within institutions
1. Policy and procedures for quality assurance
2. Approval, monitoring and periodic review of prog.
3. Assessment of students
4. Quality assurance of teaching staff
5. Learning resources and student support
6. Information systems
7. Public information
ESG part 2 – overview
ESG for the external quality assurance of insitutions
1. Use of internal QA procedures (ESG Part 1)
2. Development of external QA processes
3. Criteria for decisions
4. Processes fit for purpose
5. Reporting
6. Follow-up procedures
7. Periodic reviews
8. System-wide analyses
ESG part 3 – overview
ESG for external quality assurance agencies
1. Use of external QA procedures (ESG Part 2)
2. Official status
3. Independence
4. Activities
5. Resources
6. Mission statement
7. External quality assurance criteria and processes
8. Accountability
ESG 2.5 Reporting
Standard: “Reports should be published and should be written in a
style, which is clear and readily accessible to its intended readership.
Any decisions, commendations or recommendations contained in
reports should be easy for a reader to find.”
 Issues frequently addressed:
 Risk of un-accessible reports – different target groups
have different needs
 Delays in report drafting and publication
 Robustness of drafting and adoption procedures
ESG 3.6 Independence
Standard: “Agencies should be independent to the extent both that they have
autonomous responsibility for their operations and that the conclusions and
recommendations made in their reports cannot be influenced by third parties such
as higher education institutions, ministries or other stakeholders.”
 A lot of structural considerations ...
 Legal status and links/relations codified in laws etc.
 ... but how independent are operations in practice?




Financing arrangements/control over own resources
Independence as perceived by other relevant actors
Involvement of diverse stakeholders in governance
Recruitment and appointment of external expert teams
2.4 Processes fit for purpose &
3.7 Ext. QA criteria and processes
 Processes and criteria should be:
 fit for their purpose
 pre-defined and publicly available
 General expectations (“widely used elements”)
 Use of the self-evaluation/site visit/review
report/follow-up model
 Participation of students and international experts
 Training and careful selection of experts
 Possibility to appeal decisions
2.6 Follow-up procedures &
2.7 Periodic reviews
Standards: “Quality assurance processes which contain
recommendations for action or which require a subsequent action plan,
should have a predetermined follow-up procedure which is
implemented consistently.” - “External quality assurance of institutions
and/or programmes should be undertaken on a cyclical basis. [...]”
 External QA is no “once in a lifetime” exercise
 Focus on improvement and continuous
enhancement rather than only control
 Balance between follow-up and overburdening
The European Quality
Assurance Register for Higher
Education (EQAR)
“EQAR’s mission is to further the development of the European
Higher Education Area by increasing transparency of quality
assurance, and thus enhancing trust and confidence in
European higher education.”
 A register of credible and legitimate QA agencies
 Substantial compliance with the European Standards and
Guidelines (ESG) as criterion for inclusion
 Evidenced through an external review by independent
experts
 Open to European and non-European agencies
 Stakeholder-managed
 Founded (2008) by ENQA, ESU, EUA, EURASHE (E4)
EQAR – main objectives
Providing information
• Identify credible quality assurance
agencies, and programmes/institutions
they reviewed
• Prevent “accreditation mills” from
gaining credibility
Enhancing trust
• Facilitate recognition of qualifications
and periods of study
• Thereby support mobility
Promoting a European
dimension
• Allow HE institutions to choose a
suitable QA agency
• Fulfil external QA requirements, if
national rules permit
EQAR
Executive Board
4 members (E4)
Register Committee
3 members
11 members in their
individual capacity
Appeals
Committee
5 government observers
President
Approval
Election on
based on
Two Vice-Presidents
Election
proposal of E4
2 members each
nominated
nominations
Treasurer
by
ENQA, EUA, EURASHE, ESU
Register Committee
chair
General
1 member
eachAssembly
nominated by
(ex officio, non-voting)
Education International and
Founding MembersBusiness
Social
Partners
Governmental Members EHEA
Europe
Governments, CoE, CEPES
E4 Group
BE and EI
1 additional
chair elected by
the Register Committee
Secretariat:
Director +observers
Administrative assistant
5 government
Overview: Inclusion on
the Register
1. self-evaluation produced by the QA agency
2. site visit by independent review team
(QA professionals, students and academics)
3. external review report (compliance with ESG)
4. application for inclusion on EQAR
16
5. decision by EQAR Register Committee
Criteria and process: twostep procedure
1. Requirements for external review process
 Review team must reflect stakeholder perspectives
 Independence of the review coordinator and team
 Clear reference of the review to the ESG (parts 2 and 3)
2. Substantial compliance with the ESG
 Comprehensive judgement, no checklist
 No numerical rules such as: “At least x ESG must be in full
compliance.”
 Yes/no decision, no conditional or provisional inclusion
 The second step is the crucial part!
Overview: applications for
inclusion on EQAR
Autumn
2008
Spring
2009
Summer
2009
Spring
2010
Autumn
2010
Total
Applicatio
ns
10
4
8
4
5
31
- accepted
7
3
8
1
5
24
- rejected
1
0
0
-
2
3
withdrawn
2
1
0
-
-
3
- pending
-
-
-
3
1
1
Scope of Inclusion on the
Register
 Geographical
 As a rule, expected that ESG are complied with
wherever agencies operate, inside or outside EHEA
 Anything else would be more complicated and less
transparent, and could be misleading
 Activities
 The ESG are about audit, evaluation, accreditation
etc of institutions or programmes - other activities
(meta-level, standard setting etc) are not pertinent
Using the ESG
 The ultimate criterion is substantial compliance
with the ESG
 No numerical rules, no checklist
 But: a comprehensive and holistic judgement
 There are a number of challenges:
 External review teams use different scales
(mostly, all or some of the following: no, partial,
substantial or full compliance)
Using the ESG (2)
 ... challenges:
 Some teams make overall judgements, others don’t
 Some standards might be interpreted differently
 National legislation is accepted as “excuse” to
different extents
 Level of detail in analysing differs significantly
 Register Committee has to level out a range of
different approaches and interpretations, and
might reach a different conclusion than the
review team
Relevance for higher
education institutions
“provide a basis for national authorities to authorise higher education
institutions to choose any agency from the Register, if that is
compatible with national arrangements
provide a means for higher education institutions to choose between
different agencies, if that is compatible with national arrangements”
(E4 Report to Bologna Ministers)
 Opportunity for institutions to work with a QA
agency that best suits its mission and profile
 Facilitate quality assurance of joint programmes
involving institutions from several countries
How national systems refer
to the Register
 Austria: plans to allow universities to choose freely from amongst
registered agencies for their reviews (proposal)
 Denmark: automatic recognition of accreditation by EQARregistered agencies for ERASMUS Mundus programmes (proposal)
 Germany: national regulatory body for QA (Accreditation Council)
can ratify decisions of foreign EQAR-registered agencies
 Liechtenstein: does not have its own national agency, but the
university should choose a registered agency to be externally
reviewed (proposal)
 Romania: after initial accreditation by national agency, HE
institutions can choose from registered agencies freely for external
evaluation
Thank you for your attention!