Quality Assurance in postgraduate education a student perspective

1
Quality Assurance in postgraduate education a
student perspective

• Ligia Deca
• Chairperson
• European Students Union (ESU)

ENQA WS Quality Assurance in postgraduate
education 12th of March 2009, Brasov
2
ESU and QA

• Actively involved in the design and promotion of
  the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality
  Assurance (ESG)
• One of the founders of the European Quality
  Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR)
• First QA agency audit (ARACIS) performed by a
  student review panel
• Involved in QA Forum, EUAs IEP, ENQA
  evaluations and QAHECA

3
Context

• A growing number of Bologna states implementing
  the three cycle structure
• QA exercises had to cover postgraduate programmes
  in a comprehensive manner
• Same basic principles, stated in the ESG
  stakeholder involvement, fitness for purpose,
  public availability and accessibility of the
  quality assurance results and generating trust

4
What kind of QA do we need?

• External and internal reviews should be seen as
  complementary
• Institutional level QA and programme level QA
  should not be separated or exclude each other
• For the protection and guidance of students,
  quality assurance at the programme level is a
  possible solution

5
Specific elements for QA in postgraduate studies

• The quality of supervision/ tutoring/ assesment
• Living, studying and working conditions
• Accessibility of MaPhD prgrammes (relating to
  gender, minorities, various socio-economic
  backgrounds etc.)
• Workload and learning research outcomes
• Other success elements full involvement of
  students as equal partners and structured
  approaches.

6
Links with other policy areas or BP tools

• Recognition
• ECTS
• Diploma supplement -gt Employability
• RPL
• Mobility

7
Conclusions

• Merging education and research requires the
  redefinition of QA exercises
• The journey has just begun

8

• Thank you!
• European Students Unions
• 20, Rue de la Sablonnière
• 1000 Brussels, Belgium
• Web www.esu-online.org
• Phone [phone]
• E-mail Secretariat_at_esu-online.org