On May 20, 2020 the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) held a webinar for heads of quality assurance agencies on strategic response to COVID-19. The webinar was aimed at discussing strategic aspects of how to deal with the negative impact of the pandemic on HEIs, agencies and education quality assurance system.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when the majority of European higher education institutions almost completely switched to online learning, quality assurance agencies have a tough time due to quarantine and inability to carry out accreditation procedures in a traditional way. Under these circumstances ENQA encourages agencies to cooperate in searching effective ways to carry out their activities and share experiences and best practices of work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ENQA plays an important role in facilitating dialogue between its members by conducting webinars, webconferences and forums and organizing online cooperation between agencies with the help of its website and social media.

The webinar provided participants with an opportunity to share experiences of agencies’ work in overcoming challenges emerged due to global restrictions caused by the coronavirus infection and to find ways of effective work in the future. Øystein Lund, Director of Quality Assurance at the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT), and Anne Flierman, Chair of Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO) shared their practices. The following discussion was devoted to CEOs of quality assurance agencies who shared experiences of work in this force-majeure situation.

Galina Motova, NCPA Deputy Director, took part in the webinar.