A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya
AQU Catalunya is one of the most experienced and reputable agencies in Europe, due in no small part to its engagement with students. This outreach has allowed the Agency to understand students’ needs and identify priority areas in its work.
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Information is power. In a world that is complex in every sense of the word, this aphorism has never been more relevant. When it comes to decision-making—and as part of the policy development work entailed by my role as general coordinator (chair) of the Catalan University Student Council (CEUCAT)—it is essential to draw on the widest possible range of information from reliable, high-quality sources, so as to design coherent, impactful policies.
In an era of fake news, careless use of artificial intelligence and sensationalist debates that lack scientific rigour, it is more important than ever to give science and professionally analysed data the attention they deserve. In this regard, collaboration between AQU Catalunya and CEUCAT—and by extension between AQU and students throughout Catalonia—has always been key to providing the Agency, which oversees the Catalan Higher Education System (HES), with first-hand data.
As one of my predecessors often put it, university quality agencies ensure that universities, and by extension the other stakeholders in the system who are subject to accreditation and validation, “say what they do and do what they say”. This task is carried out on behalf of the universities, which have decided, in a gesture of mutual trust, to entrust it to leading independent professionals working within autonomous agencies governed by bodies that fully safeguard rights and are representative both of society and of the system itself.
AQU Catalunya is one of the most experienced and reputable agencies in Europe, due in no small part to its engagement with students. This outreach has allowed the Agency to understand students’ needs and identify priority areas in its work. We have certainly added value to the Agency, but there is no doubt that the Agency, too, has provided us students with even more added value, incomparably more than most other agencies of its kind.
This collaboration has yielded, among other things, the Formació per a l’estudiantat en garantia de la qualitat universitària (“Training for students in ensuring university quality”), a course that familiarises students with university accreditations and is jointly run by CEUCAT and AQU Catalunya. Another cornerstone of this extensive partnership between AQU Catalunya and students is the Estudis Universitaris de Catalunya (“University Degree Programmes of Catalonia”) portal, or EUC, which provides up-to-date, accurate data on the degree programmes offered by universities and centres accredited by the Agency.
Students planning to pursue higher education in Catalonia can use this portal to access reliable, comprehensive information on the degree programmes that interest them. Specifically, it provides data on the accreditation and quality of degree programmes, on teaching staff, and on employment outcomes, expected salaries and overall graduate satisfaction. All these statistics are presented not in a complex or difficult-to-understand format but in accessible graphs created by AQU Catalunya professionals, ensuring that everyone can easily understand and access the information they need.
This tool, which I can recommend both professionally and personally, having used it myself, offers information of interest to every stakeholder in our university system. Firstly, it is useful for new students entering higher education, whether local or international, as it helps them make an informed decision based on accurate, reliable data within a framework of quality and traceability.
It also provides great value to stakeholder groups and official student representatives, who can access objective, valuable information about the state of the system and the quality of its quality-assurance mechanisms. In general, it helps us create a university ecosystem that prioritises quality, which is a goal we share with AQU Catalunya.
It also provides highly valuable information to the system’s regulatory and decision-making bodies and their members, enabling them to make informed decisions based on technical criteria. This ensures that only institutions meeting quality criteria can access and remain in the system, while excluding would-be intruders that would jeopardise and disrupt an environment that prioritises balance and quality.
I encourage all stakeholders in the system, as well as students in Catalonia and beyond, to use and promote this initiative in particular, and other AQU Catalunya initiatives more broadly, some of which I have already mentioned. We can be deeply proud of our quality assurance agency, which ensures that our university system continues to offer a high-quality environment.
Only by using it, promoting it and being part of this quality assurance ecosystem can we maintain the standards we demand of our university system: one that is fair, demanding, innovative and equitable, and where quality, far removed from politics, is assessed by independent expert agencies legitimised by the society they serve.