SHARE project study visit: Enriching ASEAN - EU Experience in Higher Education Harmonisation, 6/10/2015, Brussels

1. European Quality Assurance
Register for Higher Education
Introduction to EQAR and its Role in the
EHEA Framework for Quality Assurance
Enriching ASEAN – EU Experience in Higher Education Harmonisation
Study visit, Brussels, 6 October 2015
Colin Tück

2. Mission and Objectives
Register of QA agencies that substantially comply with the
Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG)
Vision: coherent and flexible quality assurance
system for Europe
Mission: further development of the EHEA by
increasing transparency of quality assurance
Objectives:
 Enhance trust amongst QA agencies
 Prevent „accreditation mills“ from gaining credibility
 Recognition of QA decisions and results
 Allow registered QAAs to operate across the entire
EHEA and allow HEIs to choose suitable QAA

3. How EQAR is organised
 Mandated by European
governments
 Founded by E4
 Non-profit
 Independent
 Financing:
 Governments ~75%
 Stakeholders ~7%
 Registered QAAs ~18%
Stakeholder
organisations
Governments
Observers
Register Committee
Independent QA experts,
nominated by stakeholders
approves

4. Functioning
Application for inclusion on EQAR:
1. Self-evaluation produced by the QA agency
2. Site visit by independent review team
3. External review report against ESG
4. Report submitted to EQAR
5. Decision by independent EQAR Register Committee

5. After registration
Annual updates on reviews and countries
Substantive change reports
Third-party complaints
Renewal every 5 years

6. ESG 2015: Changes for
Quality Assurance Agencies
 Addressing Part 1 (internal QA) [2.1]
 Involvement of stakeholders [2.2, 3.1]
 Students on review panels [2.4]
 Always publish full reports [2.6]
 Appeals procedures [2.7]
 Independence clarified further [3.3]
 Professional conduct [3.6]

7. Quality Assurance Across
Borders
 Ministers: allow
EQAR-registered
agencies to operate
across the EHEA
 Higher education
institutions choose
suitable agency:
underlines
responsibility
 Recognising EQAR-registered agencies as part of their national requirements for external QA
 Recognising foreign agencies with own specific framework
 Not recongising EQA by foreign agency
 Discussions ongoing

8. European Approach for Quality
Assurance of Joint Programmes
Cooperating HEIs need
Programme accreditation
Cooperating HEIs are “self-accrediting”
Single accreditation/eval.
by any EQAR-reg. agency
Joint internal QA review, external
review takes account of HEIs' internal
Agreed common standards and procedure, based on ESG & QF-EHEA
 Aim: reflect joint character also in external quality assurance
 Non-EHEA partners: can rely on a shared platform

9. Impact
 40 quality assurance
agencies registered
 37 Governmental
Members

10. Impact (continued)
 Feedback from ongoing self-evaluation:
 Clear role, underlined importance of ESG
 Countries: registration of “their” QAA is important
 Agencies: international reputation most important,
followed by government/stakeholder expectations
 Enabled recognition of QA activity across borders
 Publication of decisions well-received
 Independence recognised as important feature

11. Thank you for your attention.
Contact:
Colin Tück
colin.tueck@eqar.eu
+32 2 234 39 11