Unfolding the Higher Education Package, Part 2 of 3
At the end of March 2024, the European Commission adopted a higher education package of proposals aimed at fostering greater transnational cooperation, boosting the quality and relevance of higher education, facilitating automatic recognition and promoting truly European learning opportunities.
In a series of three articles, we unfold how the blueprint for a European degree and the proposed Council Recommendation on a European quality assurance and recognition system try to achieve those aims. After the first article looking at the European degree, we focus this week on the quality assurance-related proposals that accompany the blueprint for a European degree.
A feasibility study carried out in 2023 showed that the European quality assurance framework has generally proven successful, but is sometimes viewed as costly and burdensome by institutions, especially in the context of trans-national cooperation.
In response, the higher education package features a proposal for a Council Recommendation on a European quality assurance and recognition system, set to replace and update the existing Council Recommendation on cooperation in quality assurance that dates back to 2006 and that has largely been implemented by the existing European infrastructure including the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG) and the European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR).
The key innovation put forward is an alliance-wide external evaluation for consortia of higher education institutions, such as those emerging from the European Universities initiative or other forms of very close and stable cooperation. Existing alliances not only collaborate extensively in creating joint programmes or micro-credentials, but many also strive to create joint internal quality assurance arrangements for their joint education provision accordingly.
Based on an external evaluation at the alliance level, the draft recommendation proposes a “once-only principle”: joint education provision that is managed by the alliance’s joint internal quality assurance should no longer be subject to additional national accreditation, whether at institutional or programme level. Building blocks for the cross-institutional external evaluation are annexed to the proposed Recommendation, and it envisages developing these further into a fully-fledged framework in consultation with stakeholders.
Other notable recommendations include that quality assurance systems in the EU:
- promote a quality culture within higher education institutions, with a view to institutions assuming full responsibility for the quality of their provision – ultimately, this would pave the way for moving away from programme-based and towards institutional-level external quality assurance, allowing institutions to be more agile in adapting their programmes to societal needs;
- respond to important societal and economic priorities – such as the need to promote fundamental academic values, making higher education inclusive or ensuring the relevance of outcomes – as part of the regular external quality assurance or through cross-institutional focused or thematic reviews;
- ensure that institutional internal quality assurance covers the full spectrum of education provision – that is, not only programmes leading to a full degree at the Bachelor, Master and PhD level but also micro-credentials and other smaller units of learning;
- fully allow the use of the European Approach to remove obstacles for joint programmes – by removing additional quality assurance criteria or procedural steps added at a national level, providing guidance and support, and removing financial disadvantages where they exist.
The draft Recommendation also makes proposals for the quality assurance of European degrees, integrated with existing systems: EQAR-registered agencies are expected to incorporate the quality assurance of European degrees within their regular processes based on the ESG. In practice, this may take several forms:
- as a component of a programme accreditation/evaluation based on the European Approach, where the European degree criteria would be checked in addition – this might take the form of a light, desk-based add-on review for programmes that already passed an evaluation against European Approach standards previously;
- allowing institutions to self-award the label to programmes after passing an institutional external quality assurance that also validates the institution’s correct application of the European degree criteria;
- allowing alliances of institutions to self-award the label to programmes that are subject to the alliance-wide internal quality assurance system – the building blocks for the cross-institutional external evaluation (see above) also include that alliances correctly apply the European degree criteria.
The draft Council Recommendation also includes proposals to realise automatic recognition and better link it with quality assurance. This will be the topic of our third and last article on the higher education package next week.