Title: The European standards and guidelines for quality assurance
1The European standards and guidelines for quality
assurance
- Séamus Puirséil,
- Vice President, ENQA
2From the 2003 Berlin communiqué
- At the European level, Ministers call upon ENQA
through its members, in co-operation with the
EUA, EURASHE and ESIB, to develop an agreed set
of standards, procedures and guidelines on
quality assurance to explore ways of ensuring an
adequate peer review system for quality assurance
and / or accreditation agencies or bodies, and to
report back through the Follow up Group of
Ministers in 2005
3The 2005 ENQA report to Bergen
- European Standards and Guidelines for quality
- assurance in higher education
- 5-yearly reviews of European quality assurance
- agencies
- Register of quality assurance agencies
- European Consultative Forum for Quality Assurance
4Some principles to start with .
- There is no globally agreed definition of quality
in higher education - No discussion of policy or practice concerning
quality assurance should be started without an
explicit and clear contextual definition of the
use of the word quality - Quality can only be assured by those responsible
for providing higher education - Quality frequently includes standards but
these are different things
5A problem
- Quality assurance in higher education does not
have a single purpose, a single method, or a
single operational definition - It can, and does, mean many different things in
different contexts
6A diversity of purposes for quality assurance
- Accountability
- Control
- Improvement / enhancement
- Public information
- Public reassurance / confidence
- International acceptability
- Ranking
- Resource allocation
7A diversity of quality assurance models
- Programme/subject evaluation
- Programme/subject accreditation
- Programme/subject assessment
- Programme/subject review
- Institutional evaluation
- Institutional audit
- Institutional review
- Institutional accreditation
8A diversity of methods
- Peer Review
- Inspection
- Connoisseur judgements
- Criterion (or standards) based judgements
- Compliance models
- Quantitative models
- Self-regulatory models
- Threshold models
- Excellence models
- Hybrid Models
9A diversity of outcomes
- Public and private information reports
- Recommendations
- Confidence judgements
- Approvals
- Accreditation decisions
- Rankings
10Six quality assurance questions
- what are you trying to do?
- why are you doing it?
- how are you going to do it?
- why will that be the best way to do it?
- how will you know it works?
- how will be able to improve it?
11 12European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) 2005
- 3 parts
- Internal quality assurance
- External quality assurance
- Peer Review of quality assurance agencies
- www.enqa.net/files/ENQA20Bergen20Report.pdf3
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13Objectives of the ESG
- To encourage the development of higher education
institutions which foster vibrant intellectual
and educational achievement - To provide a source of assistance and guidance to
higher education institutions and other relevant
agencies in developing their own culture of
quality assurance - To inform and raise the expectations of higher
education institutions, students, employers and
other stakeholders about the processes and
outcomes of higher education - To contribute to a common frame of reference for
the provision of higher education and the
assurance of quality within the EHEA.
14What the ESG offer
- Generic, not specific, standards and guidelines
- A view of what should be done, not how it should
be done - A source of assistance and guidance
15What the ESG are NOT
- Prescriptive
- Detailed Procedures
- A European quality assurance system
16- Quality Assurance in Higher Education does not
have a single purpose, a single method, or a
single operational definition - It can, and does, mean many different things in
different contexts
17ESG Part 1 Internal Quality Assurance
- 1.1 Policy and procedures for quality assurance
- 1.2 Approval, monitoring and periodic review of
- programmes and awards
- 1.3 Assessment of students
- 1.4 Quality assurance of teaching staff
- 1.5 Information systems
- 1.6 Public Information
18ESG Part 2 external quality assurance
- 2.1Use of internal quality assurance procedures
- 2.2 Development of exernal quality assurance
processes - 2.3 Criteria for decisions
- 2.4 Processes fit for purpose
- 2.5 Reporting
- 2.6 Follow-up procedures
- 2.7 Periodic Reviews
- 2.8 System-wide analyses
19ESG Part 3 external quality assurance agencies
- 3.1 Use of external quality assurance procedures
for higher education - 3.2 Official Status
- 3.3 Activities
- 3.4 Resources
- 3.5 Mission statement
- 3,6 Independence
- 3.7 External quality assurance criteria and
processes used by the agencies - 3.8 Accountability procedures
20Major challenges
- Institutions
- Formalisation of quality assurance systems
- Student assessment (including comparability,
consistency and fairness) - Information systems
- QA of teachers
- Relating quality culture to quality assurance
- Agencies
- Clarity of purpose
- Professionalism of expert panels
- Use of students
- Reporting
- Independence
21Implementation questions
- Organic development or external imposition?
- Support or hindrance for autonomy and quality
culture? - Total compliance or acceptable variations?
- Consequences of 45 local interpretations?
- How to limit the burden on institutions?
- Deadline 2010?
22European Quality Assurance since Bergen
- ENQA
- EU Recommendation
- BFUG 2007 Stocktaking Exercise
- Register of Quality Assurance Agencies
- 1st QA Forum (Munich, November 2006)
23- This is the beginning, not the end, of the job
quality assurance is a journey, not a destination
24ENQA
- European Association
- for Quality Assurance in
- Higher Education