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'Overview of quality and accreditation issues in the Bologna process', speech Guy Aelterman, board member NVAO, at the Dean Conference, Ghent Belgium, September 26th 2005

Only the spoken word counts.

Introduction
Quality assurance isn’t an issue that has suddenly popped up in higher education since Bologna. Quality assurance has always existed in some form in institutions of higher education, although it may not always have take place in a structured way and the definition and objects of quality assurance differed considerably from what they are today.

Similarly, external assessment has existed for a long time, although in the past it was not always systematically organised for all courses or institutions and, in addition, it was often focused on the influx into the professional field. In France, for instance, the CTI, a body that conducts evaluations of engineering courses, dates from before the second World War and its main purpose was and still is to award the title of engineer, or “titre d’ingénieur”.

Since the sixties and seventies
After the second World War, quality assurance rapidly developed in industry. The public and education sector appeared slow to follow this development. There are several reasons for this.
First, the almost traditional aversion in de education sector to anything coming from the industrial sector; secondly, the need to develop a specific quality assurance methodology that was suitable for a social profit sector such as education and thirdly , the academic freedom was called upon as the ultimate resistance against what was at times felt as outside interference.

Social pressure on the public institutions and education steadily increased since the sixties and seventies, for several reasons.
First of all, the education sector was confronted with the side effects of democratisation of and mass influx into higher education. One of the questions that arose in the face of the enormous growth of the higher education sector was: how is quality ensured given this growth in numbers of institutions and students?
Several economic crises caused increasing tension between the labour market and the providers of education: the industrial sector blamed course providers for not producing graduates with the competences that industry needed.

As public funds became increasingly scarce, the budgets allocated for higher education were reduced.  The government explained its policy by saying that it granted more autonomy to the institutions but expected accountability in return.  
Society as a whole became more assertive: students, parents, the professional field, graduates, all took a more critical view of universities.
And, finally, a process of globalisation and liberalisation of higher education took place: the demand for education increased and new providers of education presented themselves. With the introduction of the virtual university, not only the way in which education is provided changed, but so did the target group and, more importantly, the once so secure national borders have disappeared.

Cross-border education, private providers, sky universities, offshore campuses appear. Everything that used to be evident is rapidly changing. A growing market of supply and demand in education gives rise to liberalisation of the market on the one hand and a demand for quality assurance on the other hand.

In this context, quality has developed into a key issue in higher education: what is understood by quality, how is quality measured or evaluated and who is going to do this ?

The Bologna Declaration: emphasis on quality
The Bologna Declaration, which was signed in 1999, pays specific attention to quality assurance: “Promotion of European co-operation in quality assurance with a view to develop comparable criteria and methodologies”

What were the reasons for adding this paragraph to the declaration? Some of the reasons are a consequence of what I just stated. In addition, the objectives set out in the Bologna Declaration cannot be achieved without a proper policy on quality assurance:
- the introduction of the Bachelor’s/Master’s degree structure in the European Higher Education Area;
- the mobility of students, staff and graduates, one of the challenges of Bologna;
- the labour market and society with specific demands on and own expectations of higher education graduates.

Those aims or objectives can only be achieved within transparency, comparability  and comparability of degree certificates, both nationally and internationally.

Initially 29, nowadays 45 states, are involved in the Bologna process. An initiative of 45 independent countries. Everything set out in the declaration is to translate into national or even, like in Flanders, regional legislation. This does not take place at the same pace in all countries, nor does it take place in the same way. The process of implementation is influenced by cultural differences, historical context, and the systems already in place.

As a consequence, the way quality assurance systems are developed may differ considerably between countries, which is manifested both in the quality assurance system that is chosen and in the aims and objectives, the topics, the general focus and the evaluation methodology that is adopted.  

Berlin: a pathway for national quality assurance systems
The different QA systems clearly show quite some variation, despite the fact that all parties present in Bologna were resolved to effect harmonisation of higher education in Europe. Consequently, the question soon presented itself which quality assurance model or system would best reflect the goals formulated in the Bologna Declaration.

The answer to this question was clear and unambiguous: no to an uniformed and imposed system and yes to the movement towards harmonisation based on mutual trust.

The signatories of the Bologna Declaration soon understood the challenge: how to guarantee and evaluate quality as the capstone for transparency, compatibility and comparibility of degree certificates and curricula.           

As early as at the second follow up conference in Berlin (2003), ministers responsible for higher education in the European Area expressed the priority of Quality of Higher Education and the necessity to act. They elaborated a pathway to the third follow up conference of Bergen.

They stressed the need to develop mutually shared criteria and methodologies on QA and this on an institutional, national and European level.

The coordination of the activities and actions required to effect the aims of QA by the time of the Bergen conference in 2005 was given to ENQA, which had to carry out its task in consultation with EUA, EURASHE and ESIB.

ENQA, the European Network for Quality Agencies in higher education is the association of the agencies or organisations that carry out evaluations or accreditations. ENQA is reserved for QA agencies from the countries that signed the Bologna Declaration. ENQA’s objective is “to promote European cooperation in the field of quality assessment and quality assurance between all actors involved in the quality assurance process”.

Since the Bologna Declaration of 1999, ENQA has played an important part in the implementation of this Declaration, in particular with respect to the aspect of quality assurance. ENQA received its mandate from the European ministers at each of the follow up  conferences. 

As stated before, ENQA carries out its mandate in consultation with EUA, EURASHE and ESIB. EUA, the European Universities Association, is the umbrella organisation of European universities; EURASHE, the European Association of Higher Education Institutions, predominantly consists of European universities of professional education; ESIB is the European umbrella organisation for students.

Bergen: European standards and guidelines for quality assurance
In a relatively short period of time (between Berlin, 2003, and Bergen ,2005) , ENQA elaborated a system that has to guarantee the quality assurance objectives formulated by the European ministers. At the follow up conference in Bergen, Norway, of this year, the European ministers (signatories of the Bologna Declaration) approved the “Standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area” as drawn up by ENQA, as well as the model for assessment of quality agencies. 

In practice this means that the European ministers accept those criteria and procedures with respect to quality assurance as a guideline or recommendation for all states who signed the Bologna Declaration. This means the  criteria and procedures apply to quality assurance in the institutions as well as the external evaluation of courses or institutions and the quality control of the quality agencies.

We will not embark on a discussion of the different criteria and guidelines now. Only this: the criteria and standards are generic and sufficiently comprehensive to suit the diversity within higher education in Europe.

The European Ministers of Education also laid down the principle of evaluation of the quality agencies.

The quality agencies will be subject to an external evaluation once every five years. This evaluation may be organised by the respective national governments, but on the clear understanding that criteria and guidelines that were approved in Bergen will be part of the evaluation and that the panel of assessors contains international expertise. The evaluation process can be compared to that of the evaluation of institutions: a self evaluation carried out by, in this case, the agency itself, an assessment or peer review by an independent panel, a final report that is made public, and the decision to be listed in a register, an European register.

In view of the increasing number of quality assurance agencies that operate in the European higher education area, including those that are transnational operating or those that are not European, the decision was taken to set up an European register of quality assurance agencies that is as comprehensive as possible. This accommodates the agencies that cannot or do not wish to formally comply with all set conditions of the European Standards and guidelines (for instance the requirement of recognition by a national or European government) or have not been externally evaluated, as is frequently the case in the initial stage. Information on such agencies will be on the register as well.

The categorisation may at first seem complex, but its great advantage is that all agencies that wish to be registered are categorised in a way that ensures transparency and comparability at a glance with regard to the agencies that operate in the European higher education area.

An application for inclusion in the register can be made in three ways:
- after a national evaluation, the agency contacts the Register Committee that decides on registration (1);
- the agency is a member of ENQA and in that capacity is quasi “automatically” listed in the register (2);
- or the agency applies directly to the Register Committee (3). The third option applies to internationally operating agencies which are not a member of ENQA, have not been subject to a national evaluation and wish to be included in the register with or without prior evaluation. As regards such agencies, the Register Committee takes eventually responsibility for composition of the panel and peer review.

The Register Committee formally decides on listing in the register. The committee consists of representatives of ENQA; the students (ESIB); and the universities and universities of professional education (EUA and EURASHE). The proper composition and terms of reference of the committee will be laid down in the coming months. In addition, it was unanimously agreed that the trade unions and employers’ organisations as well as the signatories of the Bologna Declaration (national governments) will be represented in the committee.

Mutual recognition
In Bergen, the ministers made another important statement relating to the activities of the quality assurance agencies: “We underline the importance of cooperation between nationally recognised agencies with a view to enhancing the mutual recognition of accreditation or quality assurance decisions.”

Mutual recognition is important for the purpose of meeting objectives such as the mobility of students, of the teaching staff (providers) and graduates (labour market), as well as lifelong learning. Mutual recognition of accreditation or quality assurance decisions is the first step on the way to recognition of curricula, degrees or qualifications.

Mutual recognition therefore implies that agencies adopt the decisions on awarding accreditation or results of evaluations of other agencies.

As regards mutual recognition, the proper course of action is to follow a standardised and agreed methodology that involves:
-  Analysis of mutual standards and guidelines;
-  Recognition of mutual standards and guidelines;
-  Recognition of the results of the assessments on both sides;
-  Recognition of decisions on awarding accreditation.

This presupposes detailed knowledge and understanding of the evaluation system of the cooperating agencies, as well as that the systems are sufficiently similar, and that the systems take similar principles and objectives as a starting point. The main thing that all parties should bear in mind is that mutual recognition can only be achieved on the basis of mutual trust.

This approach implies that on the one hand a degree of diversity is accepted as a consequence of the differences in historical background, and that on the other hand a sufficient level of verification of quality is ensured to allow the agencies to mutually recognise each other's accreditation decisions.

In practice, there are three main issues that we, the agencies, focus on in order to meet the objective of mutual recognition:
- drafting national legislation in a manner that enables the recognition and adoption of accreditation or quality assurance decisions;
- engaging in projects between individual agencies for the purpose of precipitating the process of mutual recognition;
- starting networks that make agreements on good practices in order to achieve mutual recognition by following a well-defined procedure in a set period of time. An example of such a network is the NOQA network that functions in the Scandinavian countries; other examples are the ECA network, the European Consortium for Accreditation in which nine countries and about 16 agencies participate.

Dear colleagues, I was and am honoured to be invited to this conference today, for two reasons. First, as a member of the Board of ENQA I would like to invite organisations such as Equis and EAEVE to take part in considering the future course of ENQA in the context of effective development of the European register of quality agencies. And secondly, because the NVAO, the accreditation organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders, is currently adopting or taking over accreditations awarded by organisations such as EAEVE.

Most important in this process are trust (built on the basis of understanding and recognition of the mutual standards and guidelines) and understanding of the spirit of an accreditation decision rather than the legal letter or interpretation of the rules.

The final  objectives are creating transparency, recognisability, and comparability in the wide range of providers of education (the institutional aspect), the degrees taught (the course aspect) and the access of graduates on the labour market (the professional aspect).

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