The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), in collaboration with the National Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Spain (ANECA), organized the third seminar for agencies working on ensuring the quality of higher education and preparing for external evaluation in relation to ESG standards. The seminar took place in Madrid, with Milica Kavedžić, Assistant Director of the Quality Assurance and Research Sector, and Ana Rutović, Independent Consultant for Accreditation and Reaccreditation in the Quality Control Sector, representing ACQAHE.
Seminar participants had the opportunity to be informed about the evaluation process itself, so that agencies could adequately prepare for the procedure they are applying for. They also discussed good practices related to the self-evaluation process and received useful recommendations from representatives of ENQA and EQAR organizations.
Additionally, this seminar provided a unique opportunity to learn from other agencies that have successfully undergone the ENQA evaluation in the past and are gradually preparing for a new evaluation cycle.
One of the key points presented to seminar participants, i.e. to agency representatives, was that during the first external evaluation, special emphasis is placed on existing policies, procedures, and criteria. It is not necessary for results to be available in every area that will be subject to external evaluation, but agencies must be able to document how they will achieve the required results for each individual standard by the next evaluation.
Regarding the second and subsequent evaluations, agencies need to provide clear evidence of the achieved results in all areas. All subsequent evaluations will need to demonstrate progress since the previous evaluation, which is a mandatory element when preparing the self-evaluation report and the Expert Commission’s report. All forms of evaluation, whether the first, second, follow-up, full, or targeted evaluation, must always adopt a development-based approach and be focused on the goal of continuous improvement of the Agency’s work. The agency will be evaluated exclusively in relation to ESG standards.