Quality Assurance

Quality assurance in higher education comprises three levels. A portion of the following is adapted from the European Universities Association (EUA).

Institutional Level: Enhancing Internal Quality

EUA's Institutional Evaluation Programme and Quality Culture Project provide sample tools for developing capacity of higher education institutions to create internal quality processes.

National Level

Many countries that have signed on to the Bologna Declaration have at least one quality assurance or accreditation agency. Forty-two of these agencies are members of the European Association for Quality Assurance (ENQA).

European Level

One of the purposes of the Bologna Declaration was to encourage European cooperation in quality assurance of higher education with a view to developing comparable criteria and methodologies. The European Ministers of Education adopted in 2005 the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG)" drafted by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) in cooperation and consultation with its member agencies and the members of the "E4 Group" (ENQA, EUA, EURASHE and ESU).

In May 2007, ENQA submitted a  Report to the London Conference of Ministers on a European Register of Quality Assurance Agencies (pdf). Following the ministers endorsement, the European Quality Assurance Register in Higher Education (EQAR) was founded on 4 March 2008.

The July 2008 International Educator Magazine article, Quality Assurance in European Higher Education, discusses two quality assurance frameworks spawned by efforts toward implementing the Bologna Process:

• The Framework for Qualifications of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA)
• The European Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning (EQF)

This article also provides an update on the progress of three different countries in adopting their own National Qualifications Framework (NQF)—Ireland, Romania and Germany.