Luxembourg: High-quality higher education for and by students
As a student, you want to be able to rely on the quality of your programme and the value of your degree.
The NVAO safeguards and promotes the quality of higher education in the Netherlands, Flanders and Luxembourg. Programmes and the degrees they award are only accredited if they meet established quality standards. This ensures that degrees are widely recognised and valued in the labour market.
Students are not only the primary stakeholders in maintaining quality, but also active partners in the process. Their experiences and feedback contribute to the continuous improvement of higher education.
In this way, institutions, students and the NVAO work together to deliver education that is relevant, reliable and future-oriented.
The Minister of Research and Higher Education in Luxembourg has designated NVAO as the quality assurance agency to carry out the assessment procedures for the accreditation of the BTS programmes provided by Lycées and the bachelor's and master's programmes offered by specialised higher education institutions in Luxembourg. Based on NVAO's accreditation advice and the underlying assessment report, the Minister of Research and Higher Education in Luxembourg takes the accreditation decision.
The study programmes leading to Bachelor’s, Master’s, PhD’s and the Specialised Studies’ degrees in Medicine (diplôme d’études spécialisées en médecine) at the University of Luxembourg are automatically recognised by law as leading to national higher education diplomas.
How are students involved in the Luxembourgish quality assurance system and in NVAO's external reviews?
The NVAO bases its decisions and its assessment of quality on evaluations carried out by a panel of external, independent experts. The NVAO appoints this panel, which assesses whether a programme delivers quality in line with internationally accepted standards. Students play a key role in this process.
Student membership on assessment panels
Each NVAO panel includes one student as a full member, with equal input in the assessment as the other experts. Interested in serving as a student panel member? Visit this page for more information:
Conversations with students
As part of every site visit, the panel meets with students. Their experiences provide an authentic picture of the quality of education in practice.
Contributing to the design of external quality assurance
The NVAO actively involves students in shaping and improving external assessments. This ensures that external quality assurance is better aligned with the student experience. In this way, the NVAO ensures that quality assurance is not only about students, but also developed together with students.
NVAO and quality assurance for international programmes
NVAO carries out institutional and programme assessments in the Netherlands, Flanders, and Luxembourg. In certain cases, it also conducts assessments in other countries and regions, for example for joint programmes under the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes and in EU pilot projects.
To support this work, NVAO collaborates with the European Students' Union (ESU). NVAO may draw on ESU's quality assurance panel (the ESU QA Pool), from which ESU nominates student experts at NVAO's request. These nominations are made in accordance with criteria established by NVAO and from the pool of quality assurance student experts selected by ESU.
Interested in becoming part of the ESU QA Pool? Keep an eye on the ESU website. You can apply for the next academic year until mid-July using the button below.
Diploma recognition
Are you planning to work or continue your studies abroad and want your diploma to be recognised at the same academic level? Within the Benelux and the Baltic States, higher education degrees benefit from automatic mutual recognition of level. Here you can find more information about the relevant organisations
