EU Council Calls for Cross-Border Quality Assurance

The Education, Youth, Culture and Sport meeting of the Council of the European Union called for “opening up opportunities for quality assurance agencies to offer cross-border quality assurance through [EQAR]” so as to “stimulate a European dimension in quality assurance and to facilitate cross-border evaluation and simpler procedures for joint programmes”.

In their conclusions, Ministers underlined that quality assurance “increases transparency and underpins trust in the relevance and quality of knowledge, skills, competences, and qualifications” and stressed that “cross-border cooperation in quality assurance has a vital role to play in building trust and raising quality standards”. Ministers further suggested “allowing EQAR-registered agencies to evaluate institutions offering cross-border and franchised provision” in Europe.

EQAR has been analysing legal frameworks and current experience in cross-border QA in its RIQAA project. EQAR is also actively contributing to the work on a European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes, which has recently been endorsed in principle by the Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG).

Council Conclusions on Quality Assurance [PDF]