EQAR (European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education) with the support of ETER (European Tertiary Education Register) prepared a number of policy briefs based on the analysis of the data collected through the Database of External Quality Assurance Results (DEQAR).DEQAR is a database that would enhance access to reports and decisions on higher education institutions/programmes externally reviewed against the ESG, by an EQAR-registered agency.
EQAR-registered Quality assurance (QA) agencies carry out diverse types of QA activities that illustrate the diverse and evolving nature of the external QA in European higher education systems.
On the basis of the analysis, it may be observed that the number of external reviews mostly depend on the requirements for institutional and program accreditation and the length of time of the QA procedures. The majority of education systems employ both institutional and program accreditation while only a handful of countries demand an external QA at either program or institutional level. The length of decisions on accreditation of an organization or program is most often between 5 and 6 years, however, that length may vary considering the consequences of a previous decision.
Moreover, the analysis demonstrate that a few large higher education institutions might be responsible for a considerable portion of the student population. Therefore, EQAR is interested in the “ESG coverage” not only in terms of number of higher education institutions within a country but also in terms of student population.
More information can be found through the following link: https://www.eqar.eu/about/projects/deqar-connect/policy-briefs/#esg-coverage-of-higher-education-systems-in-europe
