Peer Expert Training by NCFHE, St Paul's Bay, Malta, 22 June 2015

1. European Quality Assurance
Register for Higher Education
Quality Assurance in the Bologna Process
Colin Tück
St Paul’s Bay, 22 June 2015
Peer Expert Training by NCFHE

2. Outline
1 Overview
2 European Standards and Guidelines (ESG)
3 European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR)
4 European Approach for QA of Joint Programmes
5 Concluding remarks

3. Quality Assurance in the
European Higher Education
Area (EHEA)
1999 Bologna: “Promotion of European co-
operation in quality assurance”
Intentions
2003 Minimum elements for QA systems Initial commitment
2005 European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) Common principles
2007 European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR) European organisation
2012 Bucharest: “allow EQAR-registered agencies
to perform their activities across the EHEA”
Closer integration
2015 ESG revised, European Approach for QA of
Joint Programmes
Consolidation, further
integration

4. European Standards and
Guidelines for QA (ESG)
Purposes:
 Set a common framework for QA at European, national and
institutional level
 Enable the assurance and improvement of quality
 Support mutual trust, thus facilitating recognition and mobility
 Provide information on QA in the EHEA.
Developed by the key stakeholders:
 QA agencies (ENQA), students (ESU) and institutions (EUA,
EURASHE) – adopted by ministers
 2005: first version
 2015: revised version – by E4 + BusinessEurope + Education
International + EQAR

5. ESG - Principles
 Higher education institutions have primary
responsibility for the quality of their provision and its
assurance;
 Quality assurance responds to the diversity of higher
education systems, institutions, programmes and
students;
 Quality assurance supports the development of a quality
culture;
 Quality assurance takes into account the needs and
expectations of students, all other stakeholders and
society

6. ESG Part 1: Standards and
guidelines for internal quality
assurance
1.1 Policy for quality assurance
 Part of strategic management
 Stakeholder involvement
1.2 Design and approval of programmes
 Clear objectives and learning outcomes
 Qualifications placed in qualifications framework
1.3 Student-centred learning, teaching and assessment
 Encouraging students to take an active role
1.4 Student admission, progression, recognition and certification
 Pre-defined and public regulations
 Lisbon Recognition Convention

7. ESG Part 1 (cont’d)
1.5 Teaching staff
 Fair and transparent recruitment and development
1.6 Learning resources and student support
 Appropriate funding
 Accessible learning resources and student support
1.7 Information management
 For management of their programmes and activities
1.8 Public information
 For students, stakeholders, general public
1.9 On-going monitoring and periodic review of programmes
 Achievement of objectives
 Basis for improvement
1.10 Cyclical external quality assurance

8. ESG Part 2: External QA
ESG Part 3: QA agencies
2.1 Consideration of internal quality
assurance
2.2 Designing methodologies fit for
purpose
2.3 Implementing processes
2.4 Peer-review experts
2.5 Criteria for outcomes
2.6 Reporting
2.7 Complaints and appeals
3.1 Activities, policy and processes
for quality assurance
3.2 Official status
3.3 Independence
3.4 Thematic analysis
3.5 Resources
3.6 Internal quality assurance and
professional conduct
3.7 Cyclical external review of
agencies

9. ESG and other Bologna
tools/action lines
 Qualifications framework (QF)
 Agreed description, referenced to the QF-EHEA
 QA needs to ensure that qualifications are rightly placed
and give trust in their placement
 See ESG 1.2, NCFHE Standard 3
 Recognition
 Reviewing institutional recognition procedures
 External QA as a basis for trust and recognition of
foreign qualifications
 See ESG 1.4, automatic recognition debates

10. European Quality Assurance
Register for HE (EQAR)
 Transparency and Information
 Information on bona fide agencies
 Prevent „accreditation mills“ from gaining
credibility
 Institutions to choose a QA agency
 Trust and Recognition
 Mutual trust, acceptance of QA results
 Support recognition
 Allow registered QAAs to operate across the
entire EHEA
What? Register of QA agencies that comply substantially with the ESG
Why? Promoting the further development of a coherent and flexible
quality assurance system for Europe as a whole

11. EQAR setup & functioning
 Established in 2008, by stakeholders (E4
Group) at Ministers' request
 Jointly governed by stakeholders (E4,
social partners) and EHEA governments
 Voluntary, formal consequences indirect
 Registration based on external review of
agencies by independent experts
 Independent Register Committee
 Composed of 11 quality assurance experts
 All decisions related to registration

12. Registered Agencies
(as of June 2015)
 40 quality
assurance
agencies

13. Further EQAR Procedures
 Periodic renewal every five years
 Possibility of extraordinary review before
 Obligation to report substantive changes
 Organisational structure of the agency
 Change in external QA activities & methodologies
 Complaints Policy
 Third-party concerns in relation to ESG compliance
 Publication of decisions by the Register Committee,
“Use and Interpretation of the ESG”
 More transparency – less misinformation

14. Recognition of QA results
across borders
 Recognising EQAR-
registered agencies as
part of the national
requirements for external
QA
 Recognising foreign
agencies with
own/specific framework
 Discussions ongoing
 Countries not recognising
external QA by foreign
agency

15. European Approach for Quality
Assurance of Joint
Programmes
 Background:
 Frameworks for joint/single reviews often complex and burdensome
 Different, national criteria, not always quality-related
 Often structural and even contradictory (e.g. # of ECTS for thesis)
 Sometimes only make sense nationally, but not to foreign peers
 Approach adopted by ministers:
 Consistent European framework for QA of joint programmes, based
on the Bologna infrastructure:
Standards (≈ ESG Part 1 & QF-EHEA) & Procedure (≈ ESG Part 2)
 No additional national criteria
 Integrated, single review of the whole joint programme
By a suitable EQAR-registered QA agency (≈ ESG Part 3)

16. Application
Cooperating HEIs
need programme
accreditation/eval.
Cooperating HEIs are “self-accrediting”
for programmes, i.e. accredited/
evaluated/audited at institutional level
Single accreditation/eval.
of JP, based on agreed
Standards & Procedure,
by any EQAR-reg. agency
Joint internal QA review
of the JP (in line with ESG), may use
agreed Standards, external
review takes account of HEIs' internal
Recognised to fulfil QA require-
ments in all countries involved
European Approach, based on ESG & QF-EHEA, and Bucharest Communiqué
(“recognise QA decisions of EQAR-registered agencies on joint and double degree programmes“)

17. Concluding words
 Over the years, quality assurance has become …
 More European
 More coherent across the EHEA
 More institutionalised at European level
 Clearer European standards, larger common ground
 Actors are ahead of policy makers
 Cross-border QA is a reality, but governments hesitate to
recognise foreign agencies
 Automatic recognition still not a reality

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