ENQA's General Assembly 2012 was organised in cooperation with the Swiss Center of Accreditation and Quality Assurance in Higher Education (OAQ), and was held on 18-19 October, 2012 in Basel, Switzerland.
118 delegates took an active part in the work of the Assembly. Russia was presented by 3 accreditation agencies: National Centre of Public Accreditation - NCPA, National Accreditation Agency - NAA, the Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance and Carreer Development - AKKORK.
The first day of the Assembly was opened by Achim Hopbach, President of ENQA.
Speech of Achim Hopbach, President of ENQA
The prospects for the European QA agenda including the BFUG and EQAR were presented by Christoph Grolimund (Director of OAQ), Gayane Harutyunyan (Head of the BFUG Secretariat) and Colin Tück (Director of EQAR).
Forthcoming changes to the agenda of ENQA agencies were discussed in 3 groups:
The first section - Policies in higher education and the new role of quality assurance agencies, facilitated by Helka Kekäläinen.
As a representative of Russia Galina Motova, NCPA Deputy Director, made a presentation on the issues and changes of state educational policy held during two last years, changes in the assessment technology and accreditation of study programmes,and also the role of the accreditation agencies in quality assurance system of Russia.
The second section - International activities in quality assurance and cooperation, facilitated by Josep Grifoll.
The third section - The effectiveness of quality assurance, facilitated by Radu Damian (Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education).
The participants showed a particular interest in the presentations dedicated to experience from the ENQA GIQAC Project in the Central Asia delivered by Natalia Nikitenko (EdNet, Kyrgyzstan) and experience from the project in Balkans delivered by Sofija Pekic Quarrie (CAQA, Serbia).
Galina Motova, NCPA, Russia and Linda Messas, AEC, Netherlands |
Natalia Nikitenko, EdNet, the Kyrgyz Republic |
Orla Lynch, QQI, Ireland |
Vladimir Navodnov, NCPA, Russia и Thomas Reil, ACQUIN, Germany |
The issue of the ESG revision stimulated a heated discussion during the round table. Presentations were made by Padraig Walsh (IUQB, HETAC, NQAI, ENQA Board Member), Didier Houssin (AERES), Anette Dørge Jessen (the Accreditation Institution in Denmark).
The programme of the second day of the Assembly was devoted to organisational questions of ENQA: President's annual report delivered by Achim Hopbach, nomination of the ENQA Board, ENQA work plan, objectives and actions of the organisation.
Voting on organisational questions of ENQA
Full membership granted following a review:
• Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education - SKVC (Lithuania).
Full membership reconfirmed following a review:
• The Accreditation, Certification and Quality assurance Institute - ACQUIN (Bayreuth, Germany);
• Accreditation Agency Specialised in Accrediting Degree Programmes in Engineering, Informatics, the Natural Sciences and Mathematics - ASIIN (Duesseldorf,Germany);
• Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation -FIBAA (Bonn, Germany);
• Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency -AQU (Barcelona, Spain).
Status of "Full membership under review" granted following a review:
• National Agency for Higher Education -HSV (Sweden).
Organisations which applied for Affiliate status in ENQA and were approved for such status by the ENQA Board:
• Centre International d'Etudes Pedagogiques – CIEP (Sevres, France);
• Independent Agency for accreditation and Rating – IAAR(Astana, Kazakhstan);
• European League of the Institutes of the Arts – ELIA (Amsterdam, the Netherlands);
• Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency – AQUA (Sant Julia de Loria, Andorra);
• Consultancy and certification services – Hobeon (the Hague, the Netherlands).
Host and venue of the 2013 General Assembly will be Vilnius, Lithuania.