The first thematic workshop within the project “Support to European QA Agencies in fulfilling the ESG” (SEQA – ESG) was held on 18th and 19th October 2021. The aim of the workshop was to exchange experiences and challenges faced by the agencies and the ministries in charge of education in the process of applying and harmonizing standards for the evaluation of higher education institutions with ESGs.
During the first working day, the topic was the application of standard 2.2. in which it is stated that “External quality assurance should be defined and designed specifically to ensure its fitness to achieve the aims and objectives set for it, while taking into account relevant regulations. Stakeholders should be involved in its design and continuous improvement.” After the introductory part and general discussion, participants were divided into groups where they had the opportunity to talk to representatives of agencies and ministries from other countries that are partners in the project. This way of working has resulted in conclusions and ideas for overcoming the challenges that countries face in the procedures of application of this standard.
On the second working day, after identifying and discussing the challenges of applying the standard 2.3. which states that “External quality assurance processes should be reliable, useful, pre-defined, implemented consistently and published. They include: a self-assessment or equivalent; an external assessment normaly including a site visit; a report resulting from external assessment; a consistent follow-up.”, the representatives of the partner countries presented the importance of the application of this standard in their countries, as well as the key conclusions in order to improve the application of the standard in the process of quality assurance in higher education.
The project “Support to European QA Agencies in fulfilling the ESG”, aims to support newly established institutions for quality assurance in higher education in the implementation of the ESG. The project coordinator is ENQA, and the project partners are: ASCAL – Albanian Quality Assurance Agency, Albania, MESY – Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth, Albania, MSMT – Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Czech Republic, NCFHE – National Commission for Further and Higher Education, Malta, ANACEC – National Agency for Quality Assurance in Education and Research, Moldova, MECC – Ministry of Education, Moldova, ACQAHE – Agency for Control and Quality Assurance of Higher Education, Montenegro, MPS – Ministry of Education, Montenegro, SAAHE – Slovak Accreditation Agency for Higher Education, Slovakia, MSVVAS – Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport, Slovakia.
