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November 2009

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ARTICLES

Future challenges of quality in Europe

Josep Grifoll Saurí - Head of Quality Assessment department

The ENQA General Assembly was hosted by AQU Catalunya on 28 and 29 September 2009. The meeting in Barcelona practically brings to a close a strategic cycle in Europe in quality assurance and quality assurance (QA) agencies, which curiously enough also began in Catalonia. In 2003, in Sitges, the European QA agencies laid down the foundations for the review of systems to assure the quality of the agencies themselves, as a means to create trust in their work and the higher education system itself.

General AssemblyComing to the end, as we do, of the external review programme carried out by ENQA since 2005 to ensure the correct running of the agencies, it can be seen how wise the decisions were that were made in Sitges. Except for certain organisations that are pending external review, Europe now has a network of agencies that have been set up and are working according to the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. It is important to emphasise that the external review of QA agencies has not just consolidated the mutual trust between agencies; there is now much more information available on the different work methods used in the running of QA agencies.

With the position and way in which the agencies work in place, new challenges are opening up at the European level. Of the various issues dealt with at the General Assembly, I would like to highlight two in particular: the agencies as promoters of public information on the quality of academic provision, and the agencies as developers of new review systems in the context of the so-called Bologna process. I see these two aspects as being connected, and they ultimately converge in different important functions, one of which is precisely that of fostering the enhancement of information on the quality of academic provision within Europe. This function of promoting transparency contributes in a positive way to decision-making by the different stakeholder groups, whether it is students, university authorities, public authorities, employers, etc. Given the pressure from different sectors for rankings on the quality of academic provision, ENQA and the member agencies will need to put forward intelligent answers that satisfy the expectations of users and avoid the possible negative effects that arise from the use of rankings in the higher education sector.

Measures being carried out in Catalonia between the universities and AQU Catalunya to significantly enhance the public information on the provision of degree programmes, and the results stemming from this, constitute, in my opinion, the first step in this direction. At all events, these measures form part of a more ambitious plan that will be facilitated through the implementation of teaching and learning processes based on the definition of learning outcomes, which will need to be evaluated during and at the end of studies, as well as much greater willingness on the part of the different stakeholder groups who actively participate in the quality assurance of degree programmes. In other words, these stakeholders must be very particular about the quality of the information they receive from universities and also be enterprising in formulating enhancement proposals for consideration by the universities.

Furthermore, the appearance of new learning models emerging as a result of new demands being made on higher education create the need for new methodological developments in the field of quality assurance. The consolidation of lifelong learning and the appearance of new transnational study programmes opens up new horizons in the work of QA agencies. What should be the review strategy in these two cases? The ENQA Assembly represents the starting point for agencies in Europe to cooperate in these two areas. In the field of transnational study programmes, there is obviously a need for proposals that are technically sound, feasible and consistent in terms of the efficient use of resources.

General AssemblyI would also like to mention the case of distance learning programmes. The transformation taking place in information and communications technologies is having a substantial impact on society, including the field of university education, where access to knowledge and the opportunity to create new teaching and learning communities have evidently improved in recent years. Quite logically, the accelerated transformation of technology and the foreseeable changes in how teaching and learning take place entail new concepts of quality that are moreover not static in time, but highly dynamic.

Aside from this, the ENQA General Assembly has made it clear that there is the need for continuous progress to be made in the implementation and interpretation of the European standards. Extensive experience has already been obtained however in the use of the standards for reviewing QA agencies, stemming from the correspondence between standards and real examples. This can be seen in the case of the managerial structures of the agencies and the concept of independence. The ways in which QA agencies will be reviewed from 2010 onwards will emerge from both this interpretation and the need to continuously enhance the way in which they are run.

The agencies in ENQA will need to continue to promote the implementation of the standards and their interpretation concerning higher education institutions. The work of AQU Catalunya to promote quality assurance systems in the universities will make for progress in this direction. As such, the Catalan agency has already incorporated these standards into all new methodologies that are created and applied in the review and evaluation of programmes and institutions.

ENQA EQAR ISO

Generalitat de Catalunya

Via Laietana, 28, 5a planta 08003 Barcelona. Spain. Tel.: +34 93 268 89 50

© 2009 AQU Catalunya - Legal number B-21.910-2008