Could external reviews of quality assurance bodies pave the way to more flexible qualification recognition practice?
The UNESCO World Higher Education Conference 2022 set out a vision for the future of higher education centred on fostering “diversity over uniformity and flexible learning over traditionally well-structured, hierarchical models of education” (Beyond Limits: New Ways to Reinvent Higher Education.
There are however important challenges to the fuller realisation of this vision due to a persistent lack of trust towards qualifications obtained in different education systems or through non-traditional modes of delivery. This lack of trust calls for the development of a shared understanding about what quality education should look like and how it should be quality-assured to underpin international confidence in qualifications wherever and however these might have been obtained.
This call is voiced by the Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education (GRC), the first United Nations treaty on higher education with a global scope. Adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in November 2019, and currently ratified by 30 countries, the GRC entered into force in March 2023.
Significantly, the GRC places particular emphasis on both non-traditional modes of learning, such as online learning, transnational education, short periods of study and recognition of prior learning, and on the role of good structures for quality assurance for enabling trust in qualifications.
The diversity of international quality assurance practice does however pose the question of what type of quality assurance should we be talking about when looking for reassurance about the quality and standards of qualifications. Traditionally it is national statutory quality assurance that international credential evaluators have been looking at to be guided in their qualification recognition decisions.
But it is possible to wonder whether, in responding to the Global Recognition Convention’s call ‘to develop better tools and practices for the recognition of higher education qualifications’, the international recognition community should be looking at a broader range of quality assurance systems and practices. In particular, if one considers that there are still significant gaps or deficits with regard to nationally mandated quality assurance of less-traditional modes of learning such as transnational education or short courses or recognition of prior learning. Could for example voluntary quality assurance services provide an additional tool in the gearbox of international credential evaluators?
The key question is of course how to identify those quality assurance systems (statutory or voluntary) that can be relied and trusted upon to inform qualification recognition. A number of regional and international initiatives have emerged over the past 20 years to help identifying trustworthy quality assurance bodies.
A clear example is represented by the European Standards and Guidelines whose key goal is to contribute to the common understanding of quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the development of a common framework. Quality assurance agencies can be externally reviewed against the ESG to be included in the European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR) (EQAR 2023) listing those agencies that work in line with the ESG to ensure the quality of higher education institutions and study programmes.
Similarly, the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) has recently developed International Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education (ISG) (INQAAHE 2022), with a view to being eventually able to play a similar role to that played by the ESG in Europe at a global level.
These are important initiatives aimed at contributing to the development of shared understanding of quality assurance at regional and international level. However, even if we consider the most established of these frameworks, the ESG, they do not seem to currently play an actual role in supporting qualification recognition. Compliance with the ESG is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for a quality assurance system or agency to inform qualification recognition.
It is not a necessary condition since credential evaluators in the EHEA are not bound to ESG compliance when making their qualification recognition decisions. EHEA credential evaluators after all are asked to and do recognise qualifications from non-EHEA education systems underpinned by quality assurance systems that have not been reviewed against and might not be compliant with the ESG. Hence the importance of the Global Convention and its call to develop shared understanding and solutions for quality assurance and recognition applicable at a global level.
The ESG are neither a sufficient condition for recognition since there are quality assurance or accreditation agencies listed in the EQAR whose outcomes are not considered by credential evaluators for the purpose of qualification recognition, the reason being that they are not nationally mandated agencies.
It is here pertinent to consider whether compliance with established regional or international frameworks such as the ESG, or the ISG eventually, could be used as a sufficient condition to inform qualification recognition practice. Could that be a way to open up recognition of qualifications offered through provision quality assured by non-statutory or nationally mandated agencies, to support the acceptance and development of more flexible and inclusive learning practices?
It is, however, to be expected that important challenges will remain in reaching a shared agreement on the standards framework that should underpin internationally recognised external reviews of quality assurance agencies and systems, and especially in accepting qualification recognition practices that might be seen as sidestepping nationally mandated quality assurance and thus national control on nationally accepted higher education.
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