Implementation of Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Higher Education of Central and East-European Countries - Agenda Ahead

330 Pages·1983·2.15 MB·English

by  Jan KOHOUTEK (Editor)

Studies on Higher Education

Implementation of the Standards
and Guidelines for Quality Assurance
in Higher Education in the Central and
East-European Countries
– Agenda Ahead

by

Jan KOHOUTEK (Editor)

Bucharest
2009
UNESCO-CEPES
Studies on Higher Education

Editor of the Series
Melanie Seto

Editorial Assistance
Viorica Popa

This publication was peer-reviewed.

This publication is the outcome of the Research Plan Tertiary Education in the Knowledge Society
(identification code MSM0023775201) of the
Centre for Higher Education Studies, Prague, Czech Republic

ISBN 92-9069-189-1
© UNESCO 2009
Table of Contents

Preface ......................................................................................................................................5
Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................................9
Chapter 1. Setting the Stage: Quality Assurance, Policy Change, and
Implementation...................................................................................................11
Jan Kohoutek
Chapter 2. Quality Assurance in Higher Education: A Contentious
yet Intriguing Policy Issue.................................................................................21
Jan Kohoutek
Chapter 3. Implementation Analysis in Higher Education with
Regard to the European Standards and Guidelines:
Beyond Heuristics..............................................................................................51
Jan Kohoutek
Chapter 4. Implementation of the European Standards and Guidelines
in External Quality Assurance of Higher Education
Institutions and Programmes in Latvia.........................................................93
Agnese Rusakova, Andrejs Rauhvargers
Chapter 5. The European Standards and Guidelines in Quality
Assurance Mechanisms in Hungary.............................................................119
Christina Rozsnyai
Chapter 6. National External Quality Assurance System in Poland
and Implementation of the European Standards and
Guidelines...........................................................................................................147
Ewa Chmielecka
Chapter 7. The State of Implementation of the European Standards
and Guidelines in the Slovak Republic in 2004-2008...............................173
Jozef Jurkovič
Chapter 8. The European Standards and Guidelines in Quality
Assurance Mechanisms in the Czech Republic.........................................201
Helena Šebková
Chapter 9. Implementing the European Standards and Guidelines
at Institutional Level: Case of the University of West
Bohemia in Pilsen.............................................................................................235
Eva Pasáčková, Hana Rendlová
Chapter 10. Participation of the University of West Bohemia in
European Quality Projects for Institutional Improvement....................265
Eva Pasáčková, Hana Rendlová
Chapter 11. Developing Higher Education Quality Assurance in
Central and Eastern Europe: Practising the Science of
Muddling Through...........................................................................................277
Jan Kohoutek, Eva Pasáčková, Hana Rendlová
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................293
Annex 1. Application of Perellon’s Comparative Framework to
CEE Quality Assurance..................................................................................313
Annex 2. Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses of HEQEC and
the Current Quality Assurance System in Latvia.......................................319
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS.................................................................................................321
PREFACE
“Quality assurance” must be part of a long term policy

There is no doubt that it is a timely publication. Its topic – quality assurance – is one of
the key issues in contemporary policy debates at the international, European, national
and institutional level. This multi-level concern is reflected in the structure of this
volume different chapters analysing various conceptual considerations, historical
developments, institutions responsible for quality assurance as well as organizational
arrangements, academic and bureaucratic concerns and practical arrangements at
Central and Eastern Europe level (see the first three chapters as well as the concluding
one), followed by “national case studies” including Latvia, Hungary, Poland, Slovak
Republic and Czech Republic; and finally supplemented by two chapters presenting the
“institutional perspective”, i.e. that of the University of Western Bohemia in the Czech
Republic.
It is self-evident that as this publication’s geographical remit is Central and Eastern
Europe, the “quality assurance agenda” is reflected upon in the context of major
changes which took place in that region since the early 1990s. The analysis presented
had to take into consideration the consequences of departure from the previous
conceptual and administrative model of higher education, a model in which a genuine
concern for “academic quality” was not altogether absent but it was woven into a
complex mix of ideology, party politics and bureaucratic procedures. In addition, the
“departure reforms” had to deal with the “educational boom”, spectacularly illustrated
by the dramatic increase in student enrolments in higher education. The sector was one
of the exponents of opportunity which emerged at the beginning of the 1990s, when
the countries and their societies of this region were finally given an opportunity to
depart from the political and ideological shackles of the past. The boom has also
provided a fertile ground for the emergence of private higher education with a whole
range of local and foreign institutions and programmes. The means and ways of
establishing such institutions and programmes were plentiful and yet, as in many other
domains, the lack of regulatory mechanisms and experience with regard to financial and
academic matters, required courage, ingenuity, determination and not least, luck. It has
not been a “smooth journey” as some have disappeared as quickly as they appeared in
the sector, but a substantial number has continued to function and some of them even
managed to grow in academic status and labour market relevance and become an
integral part of the system of higher education. No less important was the
accompanying diversification of educational offers coming from the public higher
education institutions also keen on taking advantage of and responding to an enormous
demand for studies in higher education.
The above briefly sketched historical background of the major challenges for higher
education in the region explains why the “quality agenda” and principal concern of
those in charge of governance at the system as well as institutional level was, and still is,
6 JAN SADLAK
the introduction and operationalization of one particular aspect of quality: accreditation. A
prevailing number of contributions and practically all “national case studies” provide a
detailed analysis of the way how accreditation was introduced and how it now functions
in the respective jurisdiction. It is an important record, and an interesting one, as it
shows some “small print” of the accreditation legal regulations and practical
arrangements, which, for example, in the case of Latvia, makes a distinction between a
“registration” which means the “right to legally exist and practice” (for a particular
institution) while “accreditation” is the legal recognition of degrees and qualifications
within the national system, or that accreditation procedure carried out by the Polish
State Accreditation Committee (PAK) is free and its operations, being an integral part of
the Ministry of Higher Education and Science, are financed from the state budget.
Exactitude and details with which such workings are being presented and analyzed
contributes to a better understanding of the complexity of accreditation process.
It is interesting to note that in all the countries presented in this volume
accreditation is a suri generis expression of the public authority control over higher
education as well as assumed guarantor of the academic value of the programmes
offered by higher education institutions as well as labour-market validity of the degrees
awarded by accredited-institutions. As such it is no longer a copy-cat of earlier
inspirations of the US approach which is based on a soft formal policy measures with
regard to quality assurance in which accreditation is mostly voluntary and carried out by
bodies which can hardly be considered as integral part of the state or federal
government. In those countries, voluntary and supplementary accreditation is exercised
by national academic bodies, particularly well analyzed in the case of the Polish higher
education, or by supra-national bodies such as the system developed for business
education by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) called
EQUIS, the European Quality Improvement System.
The terms of reference of the research project which is at the origin of this set of
contributions presented in this volume also required taking into consideration the
degree of implementation of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the
Higher Education Area (ESG), which was elaborated by ENQA, the European
Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. It is probably the framework
for the next generation of measures under the “quality assurance” agenda in higher
education in Central and Eastern Europe and the way how national systems and
particular institutions are going to respond to growingly stringent quality requirements
in the framework of the Bologna Process as well as an increasingly competitive suri
generis “educational market” to be affected by declining demographic trends and as of
yet unknown consequences of a global financial and economic crisis. In this regard a
creation of the European Quality Assurance Register under the overall umbrella of the
Bologna Process is going to be part of the new supra-regional framework for all aspects
of quality assurance.
This timely volume confirms that quality assurance in higher education is a highly
complex phenomenon in which a variety of what is now referred to “stakeholders” has
various interests. The improvement of quality standards must be part of a long-term
policy – on the part of universities to embark on searching for “creative solutions”, and
PREFACE 7
on the part of public authorities to create regulatory frameworks and financial
conditions to respond to such challenges1. Searching for an appropriate balance
between “regulatory interventions” and “self-steering” is what represents the potential
for a better mastering of quality assurance while avoiding “assessment fatigue”. And it
should always be kept in mind that the predominant responsibility for quality assurance
will remain with those directly involved in higher education – teachers, researchers,
students and administration staff. This publication, which UNESCO-CEPES has gladly
included in its publication programme, is also demonstrating an enormous
transformation on the road to normalcy and development of higher education which
occurred over recent years in Central and Eastern Europe.

Jan Sadlak
Director UNESCO-CEPES

1 For a more detailed analysis see, Sadlak, J. (2007). “Quality Assessment and Indicators in Higher
Education: Needs, Problems and Potential”. In: Cavalli, A. (Ed.). Quality Assessment for Higher Education in
Europe. London: Academia Europaea and Portland Press Ltd.