A bimonthly publication of AQU Catalunya

37

July 2008

AQU Catalunya has started the process of drafting the Strategic Plan 2009-2012, the purpose of which is to upgrade its operations in relation to the aims laid down in prevailing legislation (Catalan Universities Act, "the continuous improvement of quality in university education") and deal with the increasing demand for assessment stemming from the establishment of the EHEA. The intention behind this Strategic Plan is to deal in particular with the following aims: a) to establish the Agency's activity on a more regular and cyclical basis, planned according to periods of time that extend over more than a year and organised so that regulatory changes can be integrated without any significant alterations to these cycles; b) to develop and implement monitoring processes, which are currently inadequate; c) to reinforce transversal activities that take in the entire higher education system, with regard to both performance evaluation and studies that are carried out; d) to intensify institutional evaluation processes so that the mechanisms for the internal and external quality assurance of programmes and services offered by the universities are dealt with in a more coherent way, and e) to progress towards more integrated models of teaching staff assessment.

AQU Catalunya is an instrument at the service of the Government of Catalonia's university policy, and its activity affects and is incumbent on the universities; this means that, while the Strategic Plan is for the Agency itself, the participation, guidance and support of the Government, through the Commission for Universities and Research, and the universities in Catalonia, through their rectors and social council chairpersons is essential in the preparation of the Plan. The process of drawing up the Strategic Plan is supported by and involves the UNESCO Chair in University Management at the UPC University, and it is envisaged that the Plan will be completed in December, with the Agency's Board of Management giving its approval to the document.

To place the Strategic Plan within a frame of reference, AQU Catalunya was set up as a consortium in 1996 (it was the first QA agency to be established in Spain) and, with the Catalan Universities Act in 2003, it became consolidated as "the main instrument for the promotion and assessment of quality in the university system in Catalonia", within a framework in which "the quality assurance, process certification and learning accreditation of degree programmes in the university system in Catalonia need to be directed towards their permanent appropriateness in relation to social demands, the requirements of quality university education and the continuous improvement of their processes, within the framework of the European Higher Education Area".

This course of development has run parallel to QA activities taking place in higher education in Europe, which intensified from the mid-nineties onwards and became formally consolidated with the agreements of the European Ministers responsible for higher education meeting in Bergen (2005) and London (2007), and also with the recommendations of the European Parliament and the Council (15 February 2006), which led to the setting up of the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education. (EQAR) in March 2008. With regard to this point and within the framework of the EHEA, one should bear in mind that one of the basic fundaments of quality assurance is "the interests of students as well as employers and the society more generally in good quality higher education", a statement fully concurred with by the aims set out in the Catalan Universities Act.

One further impetus to the Strategic Plan is the external review of AQU Catalunya, which, as required by both the ENQA regulations and the European Quality Assurance Register, was carried out in the summer of 2007 with a favourable result. The Agency did receive accreditation although weak points were identified, together with opportunities for improvement and recommendations, which reinforce the need for and aims of the Plan. These include the following: irregular activity, with interruptions as a consequence of regulatory changes; a lack of overall analyses of the higher education/university system and institutional assessments; a shortage of expert (technical) personnel, and the explicit need for a strategic plan to provide the essential structure for, and give continuity to the Agency's regular and cyclical activity over multiannual periods.

At AQU Catalunya we are working with the conviction that the Strategic Plan will be a key element for the Agency's activity in the future.