The intricacies of maintaining the quality of education in the face of financial pressure, external requirements and changing stakeholder expectations were discussed on 8 February during the webinar “Grappling with “cost”: Pressures for effectiveness and efficiencies in quality assurance”. NAQA joined the session, during which the speakers talked about the principles of sustainable quality assurance and the best international practices of agencies in Canada, Germany and the UK.
The session was moderated by Mary Catharine Lennon, Director of the INQAAHE Board, and the speakers were experts from Canada, Germany, and the UK. They discussed already implemented practices that confront the challenges of financial constraints and costs. They shared how agencies manage priorities, implement innovative policies and international experience.
“There is one factor I think that that shapes a bit my approach to how I think about cost efficiency and that is the fact that the way the system that is my home system here in Germany is set up.
Ronny Heintze, Deputy Director for International Development at AQAS, in Germany.
Is it is a competitive system. That basically means we do have numerous agencies that that are allowed to operate in Germany and institutions are absolutely free.
To choose which agency they work with. That of course is a very different setting than if you are in a setting where you have a regional or you have a national accreditor where every institution automatically has to work with that shapes a lot about what is the relationship between institutions and an agency.”
The meeting participants discussed, among other things, the competitiveness and costs of large state and small local institutions. They also touched upon the topic of stakeholder engagement as a driving factor for change, and on which the quality of accreditations depends.
NAQA regularly participates in meetings that facilitate the exchange of experience and strengthen cooperation and exchange of experience in the field of internationalisation. We thank our partners for an interesting and informative discussion, exchange of ideas and best practices.