PERSPECTIVES FOR ACCREDITATION AGENCIES

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PERSPECTIVES FOR ACCREDITATION AGENCIES

• François TAILLY
• EUR-ACE Project
• Board Member

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The present European Landscape (I)

• The post BERGEN trends
• - HEI autonomy principle
• - ENQA prominent role
• - Internal self-evaluation (ESG)
• - External periodic evaluation
• - European register

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The present European Landscape (II)

• A number of different networks
• - ENQA (Quality assessment approach)
• - ECA (Evaluation/accreditation/all disciplines)
• - EUR-ACE (ENAEE) (accreditation/in eng.)
• - IDEA (alliance at the M. level between 41
  Univ)
• - ENQHEEI (QUEST)
• - TU 9 (alliance at the M. L between TU German
  U)

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The World Landscape (I)

• Countries with some definite accreditation
  system (USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa,
  etc)
• They are member of the WA
• Countries that are pondering to create (or
  improve) some definite accreditation system
  (China, Japan, South-East Asia, Middle-East,
  South-America, etc.)

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The World Landscape (II)

• Market globalisation
• Companies globalisation
• HEI globalisation (?)
• Employee (engineers) mobility
• Students mobility
• Teachers and searchers mobility

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Challenges for the engineering profession

• Major contribution of solving problem which
  humanity is facing now
• - water and energy supply
• - global warming
• - security
• - food (production, preservation, distribution,
  etc.)
• - health (pharmaceutical, medical image, )
• - communication
• - etc.
• There is no field where the engineering
  profession is not deeply involved with a high
  level of competencies

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Engineering profession

• What do we expect from an engineer ?
• - strong scientific background
• - technical skill
• - sharp awareness of the social and societal
  concerns linked with his (her) activity
• - deep sense of safety and security
• - ethical sense and behaviour (deontology)
• - to be open to foreign and different cultures
• - open to geographical and professional
  mobility
• - etc.

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Evaluation and accreditation as contributing to
the high quality in engineering education

• 1 evaluation takes into account the globality
  of the HEI
• 2 a periodic evaluation, resting on a self
  evaluation, followed by a peer review, can be
  (should be) a factor of progress
• 3 accreditation is more focused on programmes
  than on the institution however, no programme
  can be accreditated without a sharp insight on
  the institution
• 4 a periodic accreditation of programmes, on a
  base of a 5 to 6 years, is a way to insure that
  the programme is kept up to date, and is even
  improved
• 5 due to the differences between the European
  countries (a fortiori on a world wide scope), the
  accreditation should be focused more on the
  outcomes of the programmes than on their content
• 6 and, at the end of the day, evaluation and
  accreditation insure that the alumni from an HEI
  respond to the profession and the society needs.
• 7 for the accreditation to adress the actual
  concern of the profession, the accrediting team
  should include some profession representative (up
  to parity)
• 8 - the regular practice of accreditating
  programmes and evaluating HEI, can urge a kind of
  emulation between them and so be a source of
  improvements.
• 9 to reach such a result, the accreditation
  agency should proceed to its own self-evaluation
  and be regularly audited by an external body

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En guise de conclusion

• Accreditation agencies can and should contribute
  to maintain and even improve the quality in
  engineering education
• In any case they would have to follow the Bergen
  orientations (results should be public, sanctions
  should be clearly defined)
• So they would have to be prepared to apply the
  ESG (European standards Guidelines, as defined by
  ENQA) and to enter into the Register
• Beyond the EURACE label, the agencies which are
  EURACE (or ENAEE) partner, would have to aim to a
  mutual recognition (up to what extend ?
  Recognition of standards and procedure only ? Or
  of the accreditations results ? Recognition of
  the professional qualifications ?... Links with
  the ERIC/NARIC network ?)
• the EURACE partners will have to collaborate (to
  merge ?), anyway to find a mean to converge with
  the ECA members (some amendments have to be found
  on both part)
• So doing, the accrediting agencies would
  contribute to the students mobility, the alumni
  mobility and finally to the European
  competitivity

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Waiting questions(I)

• 1)- Burning question financing the European
  model (EURACE, ECA, ENQA)
• - should accreditation be compulsory or not in
  Eng. Education ?
• - should the accreditation be charged to the
  institution ?
• - should the external evaluation of the agencies
  be free of charge ?
• - which agency (super agency) would be in charge
  of doing that meta-evaluation ? Could it be a non
  European agency ?
• 2)- Other waiting questions ?
• - Diplomas protection ?
• - Long life learning integration ?
• - Outcomes definition and measurement ?
• - Should we push a European model in front (as
  an alternative) of the WA ?
• - .

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Waiting questions

• - .

3)- What about the PhDs ?... - will the
European model of Eng. Accreditation be extended
(and how with which conditions) to the PhDs ?
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The END