Chair: Andrejs Rauhvargers, Lisbon Recognition Convention Committe

Rapporteur: Carolyn Campbell, UK Quality Assurance Agency For Higer Education

Speakers: Maria José Lemaitre del Campo, Comision Nacional de Acreditacion, Chile

Nikki Heerens, ESIB

Parallel session 3Quality Assurance and Recognitionin a Global Perspective

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Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area have been developed in Bologna process

• What are our expectations regarding ensuring trust – betwen the educational systems inside EHEA

and – between EHEA and other regions

• What effect will these recent developments in quality assurance have upon recognition of individual qualfications?

Quality assurance – standards and guidelines

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Quality assurance – inside HEIs

While governments may regulate for quality and facilitate quality assurance, a culture of quality depends on the actions and attitudes of education practitioners.

• How could we ensure the full contribution of educational staff and students in securing and developing quality in higher education?

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• How should the developments in QA in Europe – together with the recent attempts by OECD and UNESCO - be used to open Europe to bona fide crossborder education providers?

• How could European developments in organising of HE quality assurance be perceived in other regions?

• Are European developments in the organising of quality assurance in higher education transferable to other regions?

Quality assurance

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Quality assurance - capacity building

For many countries the challenges of managing and protecting national education policies and ensuring sustained quality in education are beyond current capacity.

• What contributions can be made, and how should they be made, by the more established education sectors of Europe?

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INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Globalised trade in higher education services already constitutes a significant segment of world trade in services.

It is important however that the questions of recognition and QA with respect to crossborder education be the focus of discussion, not the questions of trade policy which lie outside the education field.

• In this perspective – how could the Bologna Process help safeguard the special quality aspects of education -– specifically the interests of the weaker countries who are the potential victims of low-quality across borders?

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Some impressions and recommendations from outside Europe

taken from discussion at the seminar “Improving the recognition system”, Riga Dec 3-4, 2004and further dialog

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Dealing with EHEA or with individual countries?

• while the emerging EHEA is major actor, the responsibility for recognition matters still falls on the individual States so the world will continue to deal with many individual national systems

• There are differences in the degree to which individual countries reform their recognition processes, or engage in intra- or extra-European dialogue.This can and do affect post-Bologna interaction.

• Educators in non-EHEA countries have difficulty in sorting this out.

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European region or EHEA?

• EHEA matters dominate the agenda of the UNESCO European Region

• It is important but has the side-effect of making non-EHEA members of the European Region spectators offering occasional interventions rather than fully engaged partners.

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Openness or restrictions?

• It’s time for further openness and cooperation, and for the spirit of Lisbon Convention to re-animate the European-U.S. relationship.

• Old barriers of national restrictive practices should be truly removed, and not just replaced by a pan-European set of barriers defined by the borders of the EHEA.

• First, however, there needs to be a basis of mutual understanding based on respect for the systems of higher education on each side.

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Competition and attractiveness

• Competition for students, resources, and prestige is not an “Anglo-Saxon” plot or a perversion introduced by the US. It is a consequence of needing to serve more students with limited resources, economic and social development.

• Attractiveness of EHEA is just an elegant way of mentioning competition.

• A dialog should allow to openly discuss issues but the outside partners should not have a feeling that while seeking own competitiveness, there is protectionism inside the EHEA

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Credits

• Issues to discuss: how to compare credits – based on contact hours or on workload, discriminating between lower/higher division subjects or not, taking grades into account in credit calculation or not,

• It would be useful for U.S. and European experts to have a serious technical discussion about the comparability of credits, and to also refer to comparative calculations of other credit systems such as UMAP (University Mobility Asia-Pacific)

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• U.S. bachelor’s degrees are required to be at least 120 U.S. credit hours (normally 4 years)(Requirements by: accreditation guidelines, institutional policy, federal law) This would mean that only EHEA bachelor’s programs with 240 ECTS credits could be considered comparable unless additional factors were considered.

• US bachelors have recognition problems in Europe because part of the credits are often regarded by European institutions as „secondary education”.

Switch to comparing learning outcomes seems necessary also in recognition between EHEA and outside...

Degree Structures

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Recommendations

• EHEA higher education institutions should inform their non-EHEA partners about Bologna degree developments and

• they together should actively seek to work out any issues and establish precedents that can be used to inform recognition policies;

• make every effort to bring EHEA and non-EHEA experts and leaders together. A North American – EHEA interaction could be a separate activity

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Work together to address concerns that are shared by EHEA and non-EHEA systems alike:

• promotion of better international cooperation in quality assurance;

• developing new and workable solutions to quality assurance and recognition of non-traditional education;

• ensuring that the EHEA stays open to cross-border provision of education, partnerships, and mobility from outside;

• resolving recognition and mobility issues that arise when systems are differently organized and structured than is EHEA; and

• continuing to deal together with fraud

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Recognition of EHEA degrees outside Europe

Bologna process has initiated a number of reforms in the degree structures in the European countries with a view of making degrees easier recognised across the European Higher Education Area.

• But how are the new European degrees perceived outside Europe?

• And how should Europe promote understanding of the ‘Bologna’ degrees?

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Improving recognitionIn the European region, the Lisbon recognition

Convention is the main legal document. It: • Stipulates applicant’s right to fair assessment,• Introduces principle of

“recognizing same level if no substantial differences are evident”

• Puts burden of proof on the assessing authority• Bases recognition on trust among Members

States • Stipulates applicant’s rights to appeal.

• 40 countries have ratified the Lisbon convention and 9 more have signed

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Improving recognition - inside EHEA• Ratification of the Convention is just the first step.

• The principles of LRC have to be embedded into the national legislation,

• Information should be channelled to all levels of HEIs

• Practical issues: following ratification, there is little change in the behaviour of credential evaluators.

• The ‘burden of proof’ is not always switched from the student to the assessing institution.

• There is often no change in mentality, procedure or outcome.

• Much remains to be done in order to reverse attitudes to positively seeking to give recognition.

• Ministers are likely to agree to draw up national plans in improving quality of the recognition process. What could be the contents of such plans?

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UNESCO conventions of African, Arab, Latin American, Asia-Pacific and Mediterranean regions:

• are well meant,• address more issues than recognition only,• deal with recognition for academic and

professional purposes at the same time,But:• seek equivalence rather than recognition,• do not establish applicant’s rights for fair

assessment and appeal,• do not clearly link recognition with mutual

trust (or quality assurance),• admit the need to develop criteria and

procedures rather than stipulate them

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Improving recognition - globally

• How well may the UNESCO conventions be suited as the framework for a global system of recognition?

• What could be the European contribution?