EGS Quality Assurance

In response to Bologna Process and taking measures to promote quality assurance, Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (thereafter ESG) was published in 2005. However, the permeation of ESG remains limited on the higher education institutional (HEIs) level; conflicts emerged between institution administration and local authorities on how to enhance institutional quality culture; ESG has not been updated to follow the trends in higher education system. To solve these problems, I propose building monetary policy under a European Union Commission that requires the institution and quality assurance agencies (thereafter QAA) to reach the ESG of quality assurance to obtain certain financial resources; raising quality standards to a super-national level; analyzing the reforms and trends in higher education over the past years and identifying standards and guidelines that can be applied.

Context:

Quality assurance is one of the important concerns in Bologna Process and has been raised awareness among stakeholders in European higher education. ESG contains standards and guidelines on internal and external quality assurance for HEIs and peer review system for QAAs, and it is also considered as a series of generic standards and goals but not a implementation guide. It aims to provide inspirations and resources to those are interested quality assurance in higher education.

A common belief held by the stakeholders in European higher education is quality culture can help build mutual trust in HEIs; stimulate cooperation and competition within and between institutions; cultivate qualified workers in a knowledge-based economy. With the implementation of ESG, the consistency of quality assur...

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...be given to the institutions.

Due to the diversity and complexity of the environment in various institutions, how to apply the ESG depends on the individual case. ESG gives the inspiration to build quality culture in institutions but should not provide the step-by-step application guide.

Analyzing the reforms and trends in higher education over the past years and identifying principles and guidelines that can be applied among various institutions. Quality assurance lends support to educational reforms and trends. It provides the standards and guidelines for institutions to respond and act on quality assurance on them. Therefore quality assurance can complement reform efforts. In terms of sustainable development, revising ESG every a few years to include new trends can increase its value in use and maintain the consistent development of quality assurance.