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European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education

Mapping system openness to EQAR-registered agencies

Click on a country for information on recognition of EQAR-registered agencies and their decisions

image/svg+xml Map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) Map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) A blank map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and countries fully surrounded by the EHEA. Every country has an id which is its ISO-3116-1-ALPHA2 code in lower case. Members of the EU have a class="eu", all EHEA countries have a class="europe", non-EHEA countries have a class="nonehea". Image based on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_map_of_Europe_(with_disputed_regions).svg by Júlio "Tintazul" Reis and Marian "maix" Sigler. Made by Colin Tück, EQAR, 2017 Released under CreativeCommons Attribution ShareAlike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/).
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Belgium

The Flemish Community and the French Community of Belgium have been Governmental Members of EQAR since 2008.

Focus of external quality assurance evaluations

Flemish Community: universities and university colleges are currently undergoing a pilot 'extensive institutional review' which exempts institutions from the external accreditation of their programmes (thus institutions are self-accrediting their programmes). This exception does not apply for initial programme accreditation, programmes that had previously received a limited accreditation and joint programmes, who have to undergo an accreditation procedure.

French Community: programme evaluations (1st and 2nd cycle).

Can higher education institutions choose a suitable EQAR-registered agency?

Flemish Community: yes, for external quality assurance at programme level. Discussions are ongoing to allow higher education institutions to choose EQAR-registered agencies for institutional evaluations as well.

  • Eligibility requirements for foreign agencies: registration on EQAR or other conditions agreed with NVAO.
  • Conditions for the agencies’ work (e.g. criteria to be used): own criteria.
  • Recognition of reviews carried out by foreign agencies: QA agencies will have to agree the Terms of Reference with NVAO.
  • Further information/regulations: Bologna National Report 2015 & Decision of the Flemish Government on higher education (in Dutch, Art. II. 122. § 4)

French Community : yes, Walloon higher education institutions can choose an EQAR-registered agency for their mandatory external quality assurance.

  • Eligibility requirements for foreign agencies: N/A
  • Conditions for the agencies’ work (e.g. criteria to be used): own criteria (compatible with AEQES and the ESG).
  • Recognition of reviews carried out by foreign agencies:  AEQES reviews the request of the higher education institution to recognise the programme evaluations carried out by the foreign agency. External QA carried out by EQAR-registered agencies go through a simplified procedure.
  • Further information/regulations: AEQES QA Guide 

Can higher education institutions use the European Approach for the Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes?

Flemish Community: yes, the European Approach can be used for the external review of joint programmes.

French Community: yes, the European Approach can be used for the external review of joint programmes.

Registered agencies based in this country

Registered agencies operating in this country

Countries recognising EQAR-registered agencies as part of the national requirements for external QA
Countries recognising foreign agencies based on their own, specific framework or requirements
Countries not open to external QA evaluation by a foreign QA agency

1 All references to Kosovo, whether the territory, institutions or population, on this site shall be understood in full compliance with United Nation’s Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.