ShareMalta Further and Higher Education Authority delegation visits AQU Catalunya
The representatives of the Maltese agency showed great interest in AQU Catalunya's activities Particularly interesting where those related to the European Approach, internal quality assurance, and the operation of the various external assessment processes
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Viktoriia Maltseva, quality assurance specialist, and Lawrence Azzopardi, head of Authorisations, Accreditation, Validation and Quality Assurance, both from the Malta Further and Higher Education Authority (MFHEA) visited AQU Catalunya this week and interviewed the director of AQU Catalunya, Jaume Valls, and staff from the Quality Assurance Department and the Internationalisation and Knowledge Generation Department. MFHEA is working to soon become a full member of ENQA. For their part, MFHEA representatives shared experiences regarding these processes in their agency.
Today, Ms Maltseva and Mr Azzopardi gave a presentation on the MFHEA's structure and the activities carried out there.
Malta has around 500,000 inhabitants, however, thanks to a policy that has opted to make it a higher education hub, it now has 110 higher education institutions: 3 self-accrediting institutions (University of Malta, Institute of Tourism Studies and the Malta College of Arts, Science & Technology), and 107 independent and private institutions. Higher education institutions in Malta may offer training in accordance with the Malta Qualifications Framework, from level 1 to level 8, including short courses.
In accordance with its regulatory framework, the MFHEA has authority over both vocational education and university education, covering levels 5 to 8 of its qualifications framework, and carries out functions such as the authorisation of higher education providers (licensing), ex-ante accreditation of programmes, audits, compliance (legal audit), recognition of non-formal and informal prior learning and recognition of international qualifications, as well as research and recommendations on policies on higher education-related issues. This wide range of responsibilities is undertaken by the MFHEA's 43 employees.