Quality Assurance in Higher Education Albania Yerevan 4
Quality Assurance in Higher Education -Albania- Yerevan, 4 -5 June 2007 Dhurata BOZO Director Accreditation Agency for Higher Education
Presentation Outlines • Higher Education Institutions and Programmes • QA and Accreditation Institutions • Accreditation Agency: statistics • Relations with HEI and Students • Perspective • Lessons Learned
A - Higher Education System in Albania • Public HEIs 13 • Private(? ) HEIs 15 (+? ? ) • • 3 main HEIs in Tirana 3 academies 1 military HEI 5 regional HEIs (+1) 200 programmes 13 domestic 2 cross-border&joint >70 HE programmes
A - Higher Education Programmes
B - Accreditation System in Albania • Accreditation Agency for HE (AAHE) • • Evaluation (periodic, analitical, comparative) Procedure, criteria, requirements, peers Evaluation results Publication • Accreditation Council (AC) • Recomendations to Government • Decision on procedures, criteria, standards • Appeal • Council for Higher Education and Science (CHES) • • • Recomendations to Government Decision on procedures, criteria, standards Appeal • Ministry & Government • Formal decision (yes, no, conditional)
B - Evaluation in HE - Procedure • • • Application Approval of request and timeframe Self-evaluation (se): se team and se folder External evaluation (ee): ee peers, ee report Training of se and ee teams Foreign experts Evaluation result Decision Publication of results (reports) and decisions
B- Evaluation in HE Evaluation Types • • Institutional: initial, periodic Programme: initial, periodic, Mix or intermediate Analitical: general policy reasons, leads also to… • Comparative: ranking or customer protection and/or information purposes
B-Evaluation in HE Institutional, Programme Evaluation or both? • Past: programme evaluation at department level • Present: shift to intermediate (or mix) evaluation • Initial: programme level • Periodic: institutional less focusing at programme level • Near Future: mainly institutional but focus on Internal Quality Assurance in HEIs • Future: Quality Audit
C – Accreditation Agency • Evaluation: process, procedure, peer team, follow up, appeal • Reporting: periodical, analitical, comparative • Publication • System-wide analysis; comparative ev. • Collaboration with HEIs for Internal Quality Assurance
C – AAHE Statistics: evaluations since 2001 (1)
C – AAHE Statistics: HEI evaluated programmes (2)
C – AAHE Statistics: HEI evaluated departments (3)
C – AAHE Statistics: evaluations 2001 -2007 (4)
C – AAHE Statistics: experts involvement (5)
C – AAHE Statistics: budget data 2001 -2007 (6)
C – AAHE Statistics: 2 ndary fundings (7)
D – AAHE Students Involvement • • Factors ; not active actors Interviewed ; not interviewers Occasional; not the rule ENQA – SG : New Higher Education Law • • • Students rights inside HEI Internal Quality Assurance: factors and actors External Quality Assurance: members of peer review teams, interviewers and feed back-ers • Consumers and peers of other HE services
D – AAHE Relations with HEIs • Trust, transparence, collaboration and cooperation • Internal Quality Assurance System • HEI feed back: external evaluation process • Quality Culture (HEI) • Quality Audit (AAHE)
AAHE Networking • INQAAHE : • CEE Network : full member 2002 full member 2003 • EAIE - individual membership – 2004 • ENQA - intending to applyselfevaluation process (below) • ECA - cooperation agreement (CEE – Network) - 2006
E- Perspective • National Level: • • • New Higher Education Act – QA ridesign More foreign experts and expertise involvement HEIs and Student feed back - institutionalisation QA for QA System A more close collaboration with HEIs for Internal QA in HEIs • International Level: • • ENQA: SG – How AAHE knows its work? Selfevaluation – ESG (ENQA), GGP (INQAAHE), GQPCE (UNESCO) • Selfcheck analysis (see below) • Self-evaluation report • External evaluation from ENQA (Register? ? )
Selfcheck Analysis (1) B. Standards for EQA in HE already fully implemented Standard 1 Use of internal quality assurance procedures: External quality assurance procedures should take into account the effectiveness of the internal quality assurance processes described in Part A above. Yes No x missing elements planned & deadline Agency looks at this aspect during the external evaluation but HEIs do not have a permanent internal Quality Assurance system, only fragmentary elements Standard 2 Development of external quality assurance processes: The aims and objectives of quality assurance processes should be determined before the processes themselves are developed, by all those responsible (including higher education institutions) and should be published with a description of the procedures Yes x No kind of measures This has been already done and reviewd in the light of the ENQA ESG Establishment of Internal Quality Systems in HEIs is provided and the regulations and standards are going to be discussed in collaboration of the agency with HEIs in order to harmonize both internal and external quality processes; the process has already started Planned to review in content some of the procedures for establishment of new Bachelor and Master Programmes in Bologna view
Selfcheck Analysis (2) B. Standards for EQA in HE implemented? missing elements kind of measures planned Yes No x We accept and try to implement but the difficulty lays in the experts, cause not all of them are able to this evaluation approach National experts need to be trained by international experts with experience in the field Standard 4 Processes purpose: fit for All external quality assurance processes should be designed specifically to ensure their fitness to achieve the aims and objectives set ……. . Standard 8 for them. . System-wide analyses: Quality assurance agencies should produce from time to time summary reports describing and analysing the general findings of their reviews, evaluations, assessments etc. Yes x No Yearly system wide analyses arre carried out by AAHE after the parallel evaluations and also for some predefined indicators in all HEIs such as staff indicators, student indicators, structure and organisational matters related to financial effectivity Overall reports for HEIs where the first round of evaluations is over (three until now)
Selfcheck Analysis (3) C. Standards for external quality assurance agencies implemented? Standard 2 Official status: Agencies should be formally recognised by competent public authorities in the European Higher Education Area as agencies with responsibilities for external quality assurance and should have an established legal basis. They should comply with any requirements of the legislative jurisdiction within which they operate Yes X No missing elements kind of measures planned
Selfcheck Analysis (4) C. Standards for external quality assurance agencies implemented? missing elements kind of measures planned Standard 6 Independence: Agencies should be independent to the extent both that they have autonomous responsibility for their operations and that the conclusions and recommendations made in their reports cannot be influenced by third parties such as HEI, ministries or other stakeholders. Yes X No In operational, finnancial and practical terms More clarification from ENQA
F – Lessons Learned • Publicity and follow-up is equally/more impacting as/than accreditation decision • More respect for HEI’ authonomy: more realiable, collaborative and objective is the evaluation outcome • Less burocracy: more efficiency and effectivity for EQA • More flexibility: more acceptance and reliability for EQA • More institutional: more acceptance and impacting on HEIs • Foreign expertise and peers: crucial for small countries • Shift gradually to an output approach-students at the focus • Student feed-back is not simply an added value: it is as valuable as peers findings and more impacting on HEIs
International Guidelines: ESG for QA in EHEA
International Guidelines: UNESCO Guidelines for Quality Priovision in Crossborder Education
Accreditation Agency for Higher Education Address: Rr. “L. Dukagjini”, Nr. 5, Tirana, Albania Tel. & Fax: + 355 4 257 954/266 302 E-mail: aaal@albmail. com Web site: www. aaal. edu. al Thank you
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