A bimonthly publication of AQU Catalunya

41

March 2009

Recently, the European project launched by EUA, Quality Assurance for the Higher Education Change Agenda, has selected the courses promoted by AQU Catalunya on the participation of students in quality processes as a good practice in the field of student engagement, that is to say, students’ involvement in and commitment to their institutions.

The reason for the selection of this initiative as a good practice is that the course programme is a creative action which responds to some needs which we universities and agencies have been observing lately.

New needs

The Berlin Declaration of September 2003, in the chapter "Higher Education Institutions and Students", states the following: "Students are full partners in higher education governance. Ministers note that national legal measures for ensuring student participation are largely in place throughout the European Higher Education Area. They also call on institutions and student organisations to identify ways of increasing actual student involvement in higher education governance".

In that same year, the conclusions of the seminar on "Student Participation in Governance in Higher Education", promoted by the Bologna Follow-up Group in Oslo, point out that the participation of students should not be regulated by law alone, but rather it should also be promoted, providing the necessary mechanisms, which shall include the recognition and certification of the experience and the qualifications and skills acquired by the student who has acted as a representative.

Moreover, in compliance with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area,  we quality agencies have undertaken the commitment to incorporate students into the external assessment committees of the various projects which we carry out.

Actions

Within this context, following the example of Nordic countries or Scotland, there are universities and agencies throughout Europe which have been incorporating students into the quality assessment processes for some time now. AQU Catalunya has already accumulated a certain experience in the incorporation of students into external assessment committees, since in this area it was a pioneering agency in Spain. The assessments of degree standards, library services, pilot degrees adapted to the EAHE and attached centres over the course of the last four years have already have already been based on a presence of students in the external assessment.

This accumulated experience has been very useful to us on determining the benefits entailed by the presence of the voice of students for an external assessment. Beyond assuring the compliance with the ministerial declarations and the Community standards, it means a greater balance of standpoints – the academic one and that of the students –  within an assessment committee. The students are the main users of the assessed service and their sensitivity is integrated into the premises of the assessment, the hearings and the resulting reports.

At the same time, thanks to an experience of four years, we have been able to detect opportunities and areas of improvement with a view to achieving the greatest yield from this involvement:

• Firstly, it became evident that, for an optimum participation of students in an assessment committee, students needed a broader training than the standard training sessions which all the committees attend before any assessment process. This is a need shared with the universities, which also consider that they obtain a greater benefit through student representatives with a broader technical knowledge.
  
• Secondly, at AQU Catalunya we need to extend regularly our base of students prepared to participate in the successive quality processes, above all bearing in mind that the status of student has a time limit.

For all these reasons, AQU Catalunya, together with the Catalan universities, has decided to lend new impetus to the courses which two of our universities (UAB and UdL) had previously put in place. This new impetus is being given on basis of what is described as follows:

The programme of courses

The first thing which should be pointed out is that AQU Catalunya has conceived these courses in an open way, so that the universities may adapt them to their needs or specificities. Consequently, no preliminary training programme or fixed curriculum has been established, but rather the strategy has been to prepare a document with the basic elements and the requirements which must be taken into consideration in the design of the courses, and to assure in this way that the unfolding of the courses will reflect both the strategic outlook of the universities and that of AQU Catalunya with respect to students, and that these courses are adapted to the European frame.

In the document of basic elements it is first requested that a training profile should be defined which will express the qualifications to be achieved by the students who pass the course, as well as some access criteria which will assure the adequacy of the enrolled students. The design of the curriculum shall include the curricular sequence and the learning activity of the student, so that it may be assured that the methodologies which are used are coherent with the objectives of the training. Likewise, the assessment criteria of the learnings must also adapt to the objectives established in the training profile. Taking these elements as a starting point, each university can design its own training programme and curriculum.

The teachers of the course are designated by the organising university and they have the collaboration of a representative designated by AQU Catalunya. We also believe that it may be highly beneficial to have the presence of the representative of a European student organisation (the European Students’ Unions, ESU, for example), who would contribute an international point of view on the aspects covered in the course.

One last requirement is the sending to AQU Catalunya of the results of the course. These results shall include an assessment of the course, in which consideration shall have been given to the evaluations of teachers and students, and the list of students, so that they may receive the stipulated recognition. The Agency will issue a certificate of recognition of qualifications, which the university may supplement, specifying the European credits (ECTS) which have been achieved.

Precisely among the recommendations of AQU Catalunya to the universities, there is the duration, which would be between 1 ECTS and 1.5 ECTS. It is also recommended that the organising university should carry out dissemination actions on the course within the institution, in order to assure that a sufficient number of students will enrol in it and, at the same time, that they will come from diverse centres and studies. Lastly, the organising universities are also asked to allow access to their courses for students from other universities.

Current status

At the current time diverse universities have signed the agreement or have begun contacts with AQU Catalunya to put the course in place. The signing of the collaboration agreement is the last step. It specifies the characteristics of the course, the budget which AQU Catalunya contributes for its unfolding, and the established calendar. The agreement also specifies the terms under which the students who obtain the certificate (and who grant their consent) go on to form part of the common database of students qualified to participate in external quality processes with AQU Catalunya.

The impetus being lent to the programme of courses for students is not limited to the Catalan sphere, however. Within Spain, other quality agencies have already made contact with AQU Catalunya, expressing an interest in the programme and the Catalan students who have been trained in it.

Moreover, just as was mentioned at the beginning of this paper, the programme has recently been recognised at European level. It should be kept in mind that the number of European agencies which currently appoint students to external assessment committees represent only 56% of the total, although the proportion was a mere 22% in the year 2003. (ENQA. Quality Procedures in the European Higher Education Area and Beyond: Second ENQA Survey. Helsinki: ENQA, 2008).

Consequently, on both the nationwide and the continental levels, AQU Catalunya seeks to be a reference in student involvement in university quality improvement.