Press Release

Consolidating Trust within the European Higher Education Area

In an effort to reduce unproductive duplication of external quality reviews, the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) calls upon European Ministers to improve recognition of quality assurance outcomes across borders as part of their national system. The revised version of the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) provides a clearer common basis for external quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and thus allows to consolidate trust and recognition.

The recommendation is part of EQAR’s Message to the Yerevan Ministerial Conference, which was adopted by representatives of 37 member states from the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) at the annual EQAR General Assembly on 23 March in Riga.

On the occasion of the upcoming Yerevan Conference of European Ministers of Higher Education (14/15 May 2015) the message highlights EQAR’s activities and the main developments in cross-border quality assurance of higher education since the last ministerial meeting in 2012 (Bucharest). EQAR recommends that ministers:

Review and adapt national regulations to help their national agencies to comply with the new and revised ESG;
Allow their higher education institutions' to take responsibility for assuring their own quality and to choose a suitable EQAR-registered quality assurance agency for the external quality assurance process;
Allow EQAR-registered agencies to operate in their country without additional prerequisites and recognise their outcomes in line with the national requirements.

EQAR's RIQAA (Recognising International Quality Assurance Activity) project revealed that quality assurance agencies have rapidly expanded their international activities and that higher education institutions are keen to take advantage from the opportunities of an international quality assurance review. Even though cross-border external quality assurance is a reality in almost all EHEA, it often takes place in parallel to the obligatory, national external quality assurance arrangements: only a small number of countries recognise the outcomes of a review by an agency from abroad. For institutions, this often means an unproductive duplication of efforts.

EQAR's recommendations aim at removing such duplication, created by barriers to cross-border recognition of external quality reviews. With the revised version of the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) establishing a greater common denominator for external quality assurance in Europe, EQAR considers the time is ripe to put trust and recognition on a more systematic and institutionalised basis.

Notes to editors:

The full Message to the Yerevan Ministerial Conference can be found here.
The European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) are the common denominator for quality assurance in Europe. They were first adopted by Ministers of Higher Education in 2005. A revised version of the ESG was developed by the European stakeholder organisations and is expected to be adopted by Ministers in Yerevan.
The European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) is a register of agencies that substantially comply with the ESG. EQAR aims to provide the public with clear and reliable information on quality assurance agencies operating in European, and the register is therefore web-based and freely accessible (view the register of quality assurance agencies).
EQAR was founded by the four main European stakeholder organisations in higher education (ENQA, ESU, EUA and EURASHE – known together as the E4 Group) and is jointly governed by stakeholder organisations and EHEA governments.

Contact:

For further information please contact Colin Tück, mobile +32 485 282355, email colin.tueck[at]eqar.eu