IQAA participation in the webinar “ESG Compliance: Challenges and experiences learned from the EQAR registration process”

The Independent Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (IQAA) took part in “ESG Compliance: The Challenges and Lessons Learned from EQAR’s Registration Process” Webinar held on 6 October 2021 organized by EQAR (The European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education). The webinar was held through the online ZOOM platform and brought together more than 112 experts in the field of external quality assurance. Experts represented different quality assurance agencies, HEIs, educational organizations, student unions and Ministries of Education and Science of the world.

The purpose of the webinar was to improve the process of future applications for registration in EQAR, and discuss the findings of the Report on “Analysis of Register Committee’s decisions”. The webinar focused on examining the nature of the challenges that arise in the implementation of the ESG by quality assurance agencies; addressing the typical pitfalls in agencies compliance with the ESG, and considering lessons learned for the external review and registration process.

Some of the key shared findings discussed at the webinar can be summarized as following:

• Among the main reasons for the applicant agencies failing to substantially meet the requirements of ESG 2015, in particular, the standard ESG 2.7 Complaints and appeals were the lack of a specific and independent body to handle appeals, the limited scope of the appeals, and the lack of a formal complaints procedure.
• The Register Committee could not reach a judgment of compliance with ESG 2.6 Reporting, when the publication of summary reports were available but not of full reports, the agency did not publish initial accreditation reports; had lack of quality reporting and low accessibility of reports.
• The lack of compliance for the applicant agencies with the requirement of ESG 3.4 Thematic analysis resulted mainly from the limited human and financial resources available/allocated to thematic analyses; lack of a systematic approach in carrying out thematic analysis on a regular basis; and limited use made of existing thematic analysis.
• The applicant agencies did not meet the requirement of compliance with ESG 3.1 Activities, policy and processes for quality assurance due to a lack of stakeholder involvement in the governance of the decision making processes, unclear classification of activities within and outside the scope of the ESG.
• The applicant agencies did not meet the requirement of compliance with ESG 2.4 Peer-review experts due to limited activities for the training and preparation of experts, and absence of student experts from some panels.
• The agencies did not meet the requirement of compliance with ESG 3.3 Independence due to the potential for conflicts of interest that may arise regarding the different roles played by the agency’s members within different committees, and lack of transparency in the nomination and dismissal of the Board members of the organization.

Full Report on “Analysis of Register Committee’s decisions” is available here https://cloud.eqar.eu/s/6ZPEWTFsXiCR4FG.