Transparency for European Higher Education Madrid, 2122 January, 2002

1
Transparency for European Higher
EducationMadrid, 21-22 January, 2002

• José-Ginés Mora
• Coordination Committee
• Plan for University Quality
• Council of Universities, Spain

2
The rationale of the conference

• Developing transparency in HE an objective of
  the Spanish Ministry of Education
• An opportunity for a more calmed reflection
  after a previous year of (sour?) discussions in
  Europe
• An opportunity to develop relationships between
  EU and LA in the field of QA
• To reach conclusions was not a goal

3
The structure of the conference

• Transparency How to make HE more transparent
  to citizens (consumers)
• The opinion of experts
• The opinion of agents
• Accreditation A tool for transparency?
• The opinion of agents
• The opinion of experts

4
Experiences in transparency

• The case of The United Kingdom
• Transparency of process has been good, but
  transparency of outcomes has been mixed
• Problems
• Different needs of information (consistency)
• Misleading league tables (manipulation)
• Reluctance of institutions to external
  information (waste of effort)
• The case of The Netherlands
• Assessment reports too similar?
• Consumer guides misleading?
• The league tables in Germany and UK
• To what extent are they useful?
• No information vs. poor information

5
Opinions on transparency

• EUA Transparency as comparability
• Preserve institutional autonomy
• Assure public accountability
• Legitimise internationally national evaluation
  process
• Establish transparent guidelines for institution
  and public
• ESIB Transparency for enhancing equal
  opportunities
• New degree system will increase transparency
• Quality assurance pre-condition to accreditation
• EC Ready to support initiatives to develop
  transparency
• Internal institutional quality (EC-EUA)
• Transactional assessment (EC-ENQA)

6
Accreditation in Europe and LA

• The Dutch accreditation model
• The Joint Quality Initiative
• Accreditation in Mexico
• COPAES A public agency for certifying
  accrediting bodies
• Accreditation in Argentina
• CONEAU A public agency for accrediting
  programmes
• Accreditation in Spain
• The new Agency for Evaluation and Accreditation
  (ANECA)
• Design of accreditation procedures
• Design of certification of services

7
The ENQA position

• International recognition of national evaluation
  organizations based on
• Criteria
• Conditions
• National recognition of
• Other national organizations
• Regional organizations
• Professional organizations

8
Conclusions

• To get conclusions was not a goal
• Nevertheless,
• Discussions were less virulent that in previous
  meetings on these matters
• We feel that there is a common agreement that we
  should advance carefully,
• but, with no pauses
• and in an international framework
• RIACES Red iberoamericana para la Calidad de la
  Educación Superior

9
Transparency for European HE

• A need in a global society
• International competitiveness of Europe
• A condition for an open EU labour market
• Student mobility
• Graduates mobility
• How to reach a more transparent HE?
• Developing similar systems of assessment
• Converging HE structures
• Establishing mutual recognition procedures
• Developing a common model of accreditation