Quality Assurance Fit for the Future – Students’ Perspective

Despite emerging as an established mechanism within several European countries since the 90s, the process of quality assurance in higher education has expanded as a commonality across all of Europe as it was embraced by the Bologna Process since its early beginnings. The adoption of the first edition of the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area in 2005 represented a cornerstone in European cooperation in higher education for several reasons: it was the first policy document adopted by ministers of higher education where the agency was put in stakeholders (E4 – ENQA, EUA, EURASHE, ESU), which came with the proposal; it demonstrated that overarching, but also concrete commitments in national jurisdictions can be agreed upon; and it had created a coherent system with ingenious relations of causality that would ensure its application: to be ‘recognised’, quality assurance agencies should comply with the ESGs, which in turn requires that they assess the compliance of Higher Education Institutions against the ESGs (in most cases with effects regulated by national regulations in case of non-compliance), and finally also that the national framework for quality assurance is in line with the set of standards enacted by it.

The report published by the European Student Union (ESU) is available here.