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Accreditation in the European Higher Education Area - Different Paths to Internationalisation
More than 150 participants from over 30 countries, representing Higher Education Institutions, Rectors’ Conferences, State Authorities, Quality Assurance Agencies and Higher Education Research accepted the invitation by the Quality Assurance Project of the German Rectors' Conference to discuss the role of accreditation in the emerging European Higher Education Area on 7th and 8th July in the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Special focus was laid on the outcomes of the ministers’ meeting in Bergen in May 2005.In his keynote speech the Chair of the Bologna Follow-up Group, Professor Germain Dondelinger presented the most important agreements of the European Ministers concerning quality assurance in the Bergen-Communiqué. He emphasized the responsibility of Higher Education Institutions for Quality Assurance, the future mission of the E4 group composed of ENQA, EURASHE, ESIB and the EUA concerning the implementation of the European Register of Quality Assurance Agencies and also the relation to the different national Qualifications Frameworks and the overarching European Qualifications Framework.
His presentation was commented from two different viewpoints. The President of the European University Association (EUA), Professor Georg Winckler, stressed the importance of the institutional-oriented approaches of quality assurance for a comprehensive quality development in universities. As Mr. Dondelinger he missed in the Bologna-Process the contribution that Higher Education Institutions could make to research. Dr. Heusser, the President of the European Consortium for Accreditation (ECA) noticed an important development of accreditation systems in many countries since the Berlin conference 2003 and also a trend to institutional approaches.
In the following workshops the participants took the opportunity to discuss different accreditation approaches (institutional versus programme-accreditation), the challenges of mutual recognition and transparency in the procedures and also experiences with accreditation in joined programmes. In another plenary session Professor Konrad, former President of the Austrian Accreditation Council, Professor Rauhvargers, President of the Lisbon Convention Committee and Dr. Leegwater, Member of the Bologna Working Group "European Qualifications Framework", addressed the need for closer cooperation between accreditation of study-programmes and recognition of qualifications through ENIC/NARIC.
On the second day of the conference Ms. Clara Zomer presented the experiences of cross-border cooperation in the Central American Accreditation Council. After the presentations of the Rapporteurs of the four workshops, different key questions were defined. In his concluding remarks Achim Hopbach, Head of the Quality Assurance Project, pointed out, that if not answers were given to all the questions that arose after the ministers’ meeting in Bergen, at least questions and challenges to the actors were formulated more precisely.
Presentations of the speakers and more documents:
Bergen and ahead: Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area:
Dondelinger
Prof. Winckler's contribution will be available in the near future
Heusser
Workshop I: Programme accreditation, institutional accreditation and accreditation-like procedures:
Weck-Hannemann
Pavol-Navrat
Curvale
Workshop II: Patterns of mutual recognition:
Georgieva
Dittrich
Sojka
Workshop III: Transparency of the quality of HEI and programmes:
Sursock
Hämäläinen
Frederiks
Workshop IV: Case studies: Joined accreditations, Accreditation of joined programmes:
Hofmann
Aeltermann
Wasser
Plenary session - Contribution of accreditation to recognition of qualifications:
Konrad
Rauhvargers
Leegwater
Plenary session - International Accreditation: lessons from abroad:
Zomer
Plenary session - Towards a European architecture of accreditation/Presentation by the rapporteurs:
Harvey
Scheele
Framework of Qualifications for the EHEA
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