In the ENQA Members Forum 2024 AIKA presents its experience in implementing assessments in collaboration with other agencies

TThe European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) Members’ Forum took place in Hannover, Germany on 17-19 April 2024. The Forum included parallel poster/presentation sessions where selected ENQA member agencies presented their experiences on sub-topics related to topic “Quality assurance and change“.

In this session, the Senior Expert of the Quality Agency for Higher Education (AIKA), Ketija Andersone, presented a poster on the topic “Models for agency cooperation in organising assessments within a national legal framework”.

A poster from AIKA’s presentation is available on the ENQA website.

During the presentation K.Andersone presented AIKA’s experience in organising assessment procedures in cooperation with agencies from other countries and making decisions in compliance with the Latvian regulatory framework, as well as provided insight into the risks that AIKA came across as well as the opportunities provided by such international activities.

During the discussion, all participants emphasised the importance of communicating with the national agency and familiarizing themselves with the national quality assurance framework, conditions, and limitations before starting operations in another country. Insufficient understanding of another country’s regulatory framework can lead to challenges and misunderstandings in further stages of the evaluation process. Conversely, professional and result-oriented communication among all parties involved in the evaluation process is integral to the success of the process and contributes to achieving the best possible results.

AIKA notes that the support and suggestions received from other quality assurance agencies during the discussion have provided inspiration to continue and improve the processes related to the implementation of assessment procedures at international level and to share good practices.

This topic is relevant for AIKA and Latvia in general, given that the regulatory framework in Latvia allows higher education institutions to carry out the assessment of a study field by any EQAR registered agency. The changes in the Latvian regulatory framework are based on the Yerevan Communiqué, which advocates for the right of higher education institutions to request assessments by other quality assurance agencies (Yerevan Communiqué, 2015).

With the increase of international activities by quality assurance agencies, ENQA has updated the information on the principles that agencies should consider when starting their activities in other countries – Key Considerations for Cross-Border Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area.