Director of the Agency, PhD Srdja Popović and Deputy Director Tijana Stanković, together with the president of ENQA Mr Christoph Grolimund and president of EQAR Mr Karl Dittrich, had the meeting with Minister of Education Mr Damir Šehović.
The goal of the meeting was to get familiar with the importance of applying the European standards and guidelines for quality assuranceof higher education recognized by the Law on Higher Education as the basis for this field. Only after their full application, Montenegrin agency gets opportunity to become member of the most important European association/register, which provides credibility and trust od the European community in higher education of Montenegro.
Minister Šehović, has pointed out readiness of the Ministry of Education and Government of Montenegro in support of implementation of the European standards and guidelines, emphasizing activities alredy finished regarding that matter. Using this opportunity he has pointed out importance of membership in ENQA and EQAR as a part of the process of improvement quality in this field, not only reaching the goal itself. In short period of time from establishment, the Agency has managed to established constructive relationship with above mentioned association/register.
The presidents of ENQA and EQAR have said that Agency is on the right path to assure the quality of higher education, describing it as a circular process of interaction among all the parties in the system which ends with external evaluations, provided by the Agency. The way in which the policy of all levels of education, from pre-school and beyond, will be designed and implemented, depends precisely on the country’s readiness to provide and improve the quality of higher education. As a conclusion, they have highlighted the importance of applying standards related to: independence in decision-making and organizational independence, student involvement in evaluation procedures and thematic evaluations as an alternative to ranking institutions.
Minister Šehović has demonstrated the understanding and readiness of the Ministry of Education to support the fulfillment of standards by emphasizing students’ involvement, and the importance of finding the best rating model so that employers can have a realistic picture of the recruits which they employ.
The meeting of the presidents of the European Institutions and the Minister of Education represents important step towards the establishment of cooperation that will facilitate the application of all standards and provide the benefits that ENQA membership, or registration in the EQAR, will bring to Montenegrin higher education system and its participants.
Meeting of the presidends of European associations in the field of quality assurance of higher education and Agency’s representatives with the Minister of Education
