Documentation

Introduction :

In 2010, five years after the adoption of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG) by the European Ministers of Education in Bergen (2005), in cooperation with the other partners of the E4-Group, ENQA, ESU and EUA, EURASHE accepted the mandate from the Ministers of the European Higher Education Area to examine the awareness, implementation and usefulness of the ESG in view of a possible revision of the ESG.

The E4-Group responded by running a project, "Mapping the Implementation and Application of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (MAP-ESG project)", and presented a joint report of the MAP-ESG project at the Ministerial meeting in Bucharest in April 2012.

 

As we had completed an extensive consultation amongst members and stakeholders for the MAPESG project, which had delivered substantial input and which had only partly fed into the joint E4 report, EURASHE proposed to publish a report of its own, focusing on the results and recommendations affecting professional higher education.
It allows us to formulate conclusions that are less shaped by a compromise between the E4 partners, and to reflect a stronger opinion from experts and stakeholders in professional higher education. To mention one: the EURASHE survey results reveal significant regional differences in the implementation and usefulness of the ESG for professional higher-education institutions, depending amongst others, on the experience with formal internal and external quality assurance. I am therefore pleased to present to you a summative report in which the results from an extensive online survey are interpreted with the help of information gathered at a workshop and in a number of in-depth interviews. This EURASHE report is the result of two years' work and commitment by a large number of people. Therefore, I wish to thank all contributors to this initiative: the members of EURASHE's working group on quality assurance and transparency instruments, the EURASHE Secretariat and the participants to the on-line survey, the workshop and in-depth-interviews.

 

This report reveals more than just ‘how' the ESG are perceived and implemented: it shows the surprisingly strong influence of the ESG in the development of quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area, and further provides an insight into the diverse and common-ground practices of quality assurance in professional higher education in different countries in the European Higher Education Area. Such insight, hopefully will facilitate broad communication and co-operation in quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area. This brief report is therefore further evidence of EURASHE's commitment to continuous support towards the development of quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area.

 

Stefan Delplace

Secretary General of EURASHE

 

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