On 15 and 16 December 2016 the ECA-NVAO Winter Seminar was held. On 15 December the seminar took place in the Kurhaus in The Hague. The day started with a smaller seminar for the recipients of the ECA Certificate for Quality in Internationalisation (CeQuInt) and representatives of ECA. Dr Laura Rumbley from Boston College, Center for International Higher Education gave an overview of recent developments related to the quality of internationalisation. Hendrik Jan Hobbes from EP-Nuffic presented the plan for  linking the MINT tool to the CeQuInt framework. Finally, a discussion in small groups was held to elaborate on experiences, challenges and knowledge exchange with regard to CeQuInt. The presentations can be viewed here.

In the afternoon the ECA-NVAO seminar on Quality Assurance of Cross-Border Higher Education took place with nearly 100 registered participants. Ann Verreth, Vice-Chair of NVAO, chaired the event. The keynote on new developments in cross-border higher education was delivered by Carolyn Campbell from the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. Three higher education institutions presented their perspectives on the QA of their international branch campuses: Ghent University (Kristiaan Versluys), ESSEC (Christian Koenig), and Stenden University of Applied Sciences (Dymphi van der Hoeven and Maureen van der Meché). The first results of a survey on QA of CBHE among ECA member agencies were presented by Solange Pisarz (HCERES) and Maciej Markowski (PKA). Fabrizio Trifiro from QAA explained the different approaches to quality assurance of TNE taken around the world. Axel Aerden (NVAO) moderated a panel discussion among stakeholders (Kristiaan Versluys, Blazhe Todorovski/ESU, Colin Tück/EQAR, Melissa Keizer/Dutch Ministry of Education, Jenneke Lokhoff/EP-Nuffic). The afternoon ended with conclusions by Ann Verreth and Jürgen Petersen (ZEvA), the Chair of ECA.
For the presentations click here.
A video recording of the QA of CBHE seminar can be viewed on ECA’s YouTube channel.
Pictures of the whole day are available here.

On 16 December, and partially on 14 December, there were meetings of ECA members, the Board, working groups and the Certification Group. These meetings took place at the NVAO offices in The Hague. Short presentations of the German and Spanish accreditation systems were given which can be downloaded  here.

On 3 December 2015 ECA and NVAO organised the Seminar “National Implementation of the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes”. More than 100 representatives of higher education institutions, joint programmes coordinators, QA agencies, governments and other stakeholders were present.

The European approach for accreditation of joint programmes that was adopted by the Ministers of the EHEA in Yerevan in May 2015  is a huge step forward. Can the implementation start right away or are changes in national legislation necessary? What challenges do HEIs/joint programmes, agencies and governments face in applying the European Approach? Is recognition of joint programmes and the degrees awarded assured? These and other questions were looked at from the viewpoint of different stakeholders such as the Bologna Follow-Up Group, European Commission, national recognition authorities and governments, EQAR, QA agencies, and of course the perspectives of joint programmes and their students and alumni. Although there are still challenges to overcome the seminar concluded positively with a plea to start implementing the European Approach for QA of Joint Programmes in practice.

For the programme, presentations, live stream and pictures click here.

Read the original QAzette article: Report on Progress in Quality Assurance in Higher Education

On behalf of the ECA Board, Rolf Heusser formulated a short response  to the Report. A more detailed follow-up by ECA will follow shortly.

Presentations

• Report on Progress in Quality Assurance in Higher Education, Daniel Gohring, European Commission
• Response by Rolf Heusser, Chair of ECA