Annexes to COM(2014)29 - Report on Progress in Quality Assurance in Higher Education

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dossier COM(2014)29 - Report on Progress in Quality Assurance in Higher Education.
document COM(2014)29 EN
date January 28, 2014
agreements mandating the QA agency in the receiving country to act on behalf of the sending QA agency, or to allow an EQAR-registered agency to evaluate the CBHE institution, would help meet quality concerns and have the added advantage of encouraging cross-border cooperation and mutual learning.

3. CONCLUSIONS – EU SUPPORT FOR QUALITY ENHANCEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

This report demonstrates some progress since 2009, but also reveals gaps in how QA supports higher education reforms such as widening access, improving employability and internationalisation, or improving doctoral training and human resources strategies. To bridge these gaps, QA has to become a support to creating an internal quality culture rather than a tick-box procedure. It needs to engage with all areas of an institution's activities, to keep up with change in how higher education is designed and delivered, and involve the entire institution in creating a quality culture that underpins teaching and learning.

Moreover, citizens increasingly move between systems – both in the traditional initial education pathway and to upgrade and widen their knowledge and skills throughout their lives. More and more learning opportunities no longer fit in conventional classification arrangements. Learners are increasingly offered – and rightly so – the chance of assembling their learning pathway by selecting opportunities from different sub-systems and forms of delivery, including via learning resources delivered through ICT, and they need to be able to trust their quality.

The emergence of quality assured qualification frameworks for lifelong learning, strongly promoted by the EQF, calls for reflections on a sector-based approach to quality assurance and on whether it is possible to identify some basic principles and guidelines valid across sectors and applicable to all qualifications. To address such challenges, it would be valuable to discuss QA in higher education within a comprehensive context of all instruments for transparency and quality assurance. The case for closer coordination of all European instruments for transparency and quality assurance is being explored by the Commission as a way to achieve a full European area of skills and qualifications. The scope of quality assurance should be widened to cover a broader range of topics relevant to higher education.

In that light the Commission plans to undertake the following actions towards better European cooperation in quality assurance for lifelong learning:

· Consulting stakeholders on the findings of this report and on the need for and feasibility of improving coherence between quality assurance in different education sub-sectors, as part of the forthcoming public consultation towards a European area of skills and qualifications, seeking further synergies and convergence of EU transparency and recognition tools[51].

· Stressing the need for a thorough-going revision of the ESG that lays emphasis on raising quality standards rather than on procedural approaches, widens its scope to include the issues raised by this report, and opens up to cooperation on quality assurance with other education and training sectors.

· Continuing to improve the articulation of European transparency tools that support quality assurance, recognition and mobility, inter alia in its follow-up to the 2013 evaluations of the European Qualifications Framework, EQAVET and Europass; through support to the ENIC-NARIC network, EQF National Coordination Points and Europass Centres; and in the revision of the ECTS Users’ Guide.

· Working with Member States to encourage[52] more quality assurance agencies to apply for EQAR registration; and to allow foreign EQAR-registered agencies to operate in their HE systems.

· Continuing to promote cooperation on QA at international level, through policy dialogue with key international partners and as a basis for partnerships with HEIs around the world.

Through Erasmus+, the EU will provide:

· Support for cross-border cooperation in QA through:

· Strategic partnerships and knowledge alliances, enabling HEIs to learn from each other in developing quality cultures and in supporting involvement of employers and new stakeholders such as researchers, employees, etc.;

· Providing support to QAAs and HEIs to work together to develop internal quality assurance processes to address key challenges and ensure better impact of the revised ESG at institutional level.

· Enhancing cross-sectoral dialogue with VET on the theme of QA;

· Sharing good practice to foster simpler procedures for accreditation of joint programmes, through European-supported initiatives.

· Support for higher education reform, including 

· An initiative to promote reform in higher education, including on the development of a quality culture, through peer-learning and review and stakeholder studies or tools, manuals, etc.,

· Innovative projects to enhance the capacity of quality assurance to support sustainable reform.

The Commission welcomes the emphasis placed by a number of countries on the quality of their higher education systems in the draft Partnership Agreements being submitted to provide a framework for spending under the 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Funds. It is vital that these commitments are underpinned by focused initiatives in the operational programmes which will implement the Agreements, and strengthening quality assurance arrangements should be a clear objective of such initiatives.

[1]              COM(2011) 567 final

[2]              COM(2013) 499 final

[3]              COM(2013) 654 final

[4]               OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills. http://skills.oecd.org/documents/OECD_Skills_Outlook_2013.pdf

[5]              COM(2009) 487 final

[6]              Recommendation 2006/143/EC of 15February 2006 (OJ L 64of 4.3.2006)

[7]               Rauhvargers, Andrejs (2012): Report by the EHEA Working Group on Recognition, p 23. Available online at http://www.ehea.info/Uploads/%281%29/Recognition%20WG%20Report.pdf

[8]               http://www.eua.be/Libraries/Publications_homepage_list/Salzburg_II_Recommendations.sflb.ashx

                http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/pdf/research_policies/Principles_for_Innovative_Doctoral_Training.pdf

[9]               http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/rights/strategy4Researcher

[10]             EACEA (2012): The European Higher Education Area in 2012: Bologna Process Implementation Report, p 60

http://www.ehea.info/Uploads/%281%29/Bologna%20Process%20Implementation%20Report.pdf

[11]             Loukkola, Tia; Zhang, Thérèse (2010): Examining Quality Culture: Part 1. EUA. Brussels, p. 33. http://www.eua.be/pubs/Examining_Quality_Culture_Part_1.pdf

[12]             EACEA, op.cit, p 68

[13]             IBAR (2012): Identifying Barriers in Promoting the ESG for Quality Assurance at Institutional Level. Work Package 8, p 4

 http://www.ibar-llp.eu/assets/files/wp8/WP8%20Cross-country%20comparative%20study.pdf

[14]             Ibid, p 38

[15]            Jungblut, Jens; Vukasovic, Martina (2013): QUEST FOR QUALITY FOR STUDENTS - Survey on Students’ perspectives. ESU, Brussels, p 68. http://www.esu-online.org/resourcehandler/30010f4b-c7a9-4827-93a5-84aaaaa91709/

[16]             Bischof, Lukas; Gajowniczek, Joanna; Maikämper, Moritz (2013): Study to Prepare the Report on Progress in the Development of Quality Assurance Systems in the Various Member States and on Cooperation Activities at European Level, p 27

[17]             Modernisation of Higher Education in Europe: access, retention and employability - Eurydice research, to be published first semester 2014. BE-de and IS involve employers in external QA without any formal requirements.

[18]             Eurydice source data for the Bologna Implementation report

[19]             EACEA, op.cit, p 69

[20]             Bischof et al., op.cit, p 39. Vercruysse, Proteasa, 2012

[21]            ENQA (2011): MAPPING THE IMPLEMENTATION AND APPLICATION OF THE ESG (MAP-ESG PROJECT). ENQA. Brussels, p 56. http://www.enqa.eu/files/op_17_web.pdf

[22]             IBAR (2012): Work Package 5, p 12

http://www.ibar-llp.eu/assets/files/wp5/WP5%20Cross-country%20comparative%20study.pdf

[23]             Jungblut, Vukasovic, op.cit, p 67

[24]             EHEA Ministerial Conference (2012): Bucharest Communiqué, p2. Revision undertaken by stakeholder organisations (ENQA; ESU; EUA; EURASHE, Education international; EQAR; Business Europe) for endorsement by Ministers in 2015

[25]             Eurydice, op. cit.

[26]             OECD average in 2011 is 68.4% of undergraduates who complete their degree.

[27]             Loukkala, Zhang, op.cit, pp. 11, 30

[28]             EACEA, op.cit, p 112

[29]            Sursock, Andrée; Smidt, Hanne (2010): Trends 2010: A decade of change in European Higher Education. EUA. Brussels, p 86

http://www.eua.be/typo3conf/ext/bzb_securelink/pushFile.php?cuid=2756&file=fileadmin/user_upload/files/Publications/Trends_2010.pdf

[30]             EACEA, op.cit, p 51

[31]             Ibid, p 51

[32]             Cf Bucharest Communiqué, p 4

[33]             Loukkala, Zhang, op.cit, p 34

[34]            Report of the High Level Group on Modernisation of Higher Education, http://ec.europa.eu/education/higher-education/modernisation/index.html

[35]             Eurydice unpublished

[36]             Ibid.

[37]            Gaebel, Michael et al (2012): Tracking Learners’ and Graduates’ Progression Paths (TRACKIT). EUA. Brussels, pp 27-28.

 http://www.eua.be/Libraries/Publications_homepage_list/EUA_Trackit_web.sflb.ashx

[38]             Eurydice unpublished

[39]             Gaebel et al., op.cit, p 26

[40]             Ibid, p 44

[41]             Sursock, Smidt, op.cit, p 21

[42]             Bischof, op.cit, p 50

[43]            http://www.enqa.eu/agencies.lasso, checked on 04/11/2013 (although this includes small countries that may not have a national QAA)

[44]             EU Governmental Members: AT, BE-nl, BG, HR, CY, CZ, DK, EE, ES, FR, DE, IE, PT, LV, LU, MT, NL, PL, PT, RO, SI - http://www.eqar.eu/association/members.html#c28

[45]             http://www.eqar.eu/fileadmin/documents/eqar/information/EQAR_AR12_screen.pdf

[46]             Bischof, op.cit, p 56

[47]             Tück, Colin (2013): EQAR Annual Report 2012, pp 15-17. http://www.eqar.eu/fileadmin/documents/eqar/information/EQAR_AR12_print.pdf

[48]             Ibid. See also MULTRA at: http://www.ecaconsortium.net/main/documents/mutual-recognition-agreements

[49]             Bischof, op. cit, p 52

[50]            ENQA and EQAR led projects to report in 2014.

[51]             COM(2012) 669 final

[52]             Strategic Plan 2013 – 2017 (Tück, op.cit, pp 25-29) suggests, inter alia, doing this through the ESG revision.