Baltic Quality Assurance Agencies Discuss the Implementation of Cyclical Institutional Accreditation

On October 16–17 this year, the Quality Agency for Higher Education (AIKA) hosted colleagues from the Estonian Quality Agency for Education (HAKA) and the Lithuanian Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education (SKVC) in Riga, organizing a workshop titled “Institutional Accreditation – Promoting Institutional Autonomy and Supporting Quality Culture.”

During the workshop, the Estonian and Lithuanian agencies shared their experiences in implementing cyclical institutional accreditation in Estonia and Lithuania, while AIKA presented the progress made so far in introducing cyclical institutional accreditation in Latvia and shared insights gained from the process of study field evaluation.

The workshop focused on three main themes: the role of institutional accreditation in developing and promoting quality culture; methodological models of institutional accreditation; and the flexible application of common quality criteria in diverse contexts.

The Head of AIKA, Jolanta Silka, noted:

“AIKA hosted its first meeting of the Baltic quality assurance agencies in Latvia in 2015, when the agency had just been established and was sharing its plans for ensuring full compliance with the ESG, with neighboring agencies that were already ENQA members and registered in EQAR. Now, ten years later, AIKA can fully and equally engage in discussions on the implementation of the next stage of development – cyclical institutional accreditation. Cooperation among the Baltic states and their example has always been both an important source of support and a strong motivation for continuous improvement.”

The conclusions and insights gained from the workshop will be incorporated into the regulatory framework for cyclical institutional accreditation – both in national legislation and in AIKA’s methodologies and guidelines.