QAA signs agreement with Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education

QAA has been on the road again this month, this time travelling to Bucharest to attend the 2024 International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) Forum hosted by the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS) at the National University of Science and Technology Politehnica Bucharest.

During the Forum we were delighted to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the host agency ARACIS, a fellow ENQA member, committing to work together to promote a culture of quality assurance within institutions and systems. Both agencies also agreed to collaborate to advise on quality assurance and enhancement practices that affect transnational education and research collaboration, and to build staff capacity necessary for ensuring reliability, consistency and complementarity in quality assurance, qualifications frameworks, and in the recognition of qualifications.

The Forum featured fascinating sessions covering key topics such as principles and techniques of quality assurance in higher education, global trends in quality assurance, and bridging the gap to quality education for all.

QAA’s Dr Kerr Castle led a roundtable with Scott Blair, PhD, from Sulitest focused on embedding social impact and sustainability literacy into the curriculum. The session discussed how one of the biggest roadblocks to embedding sustainability in higher education, industry and society more broadly is changing human values and persistent behaviours. It concluded that joined up, strategic intervention at all levels of an institution can create the biggest impact.

QAA's Director of International & Professional Services, Eduardo Ramos, also led a session focused on exploring critical approaches to quality assurance in the Global South. Presenting an overview of ENQA’s European Standards and Guidelines for quality assurance (ESG), Eduardo encouraged the audience to consider the importance of contextualisation in quality assurance, and how standards and guidelines are applied in their own contexts.

QAA Chief Executive Vicki Stott said: 'I was delighted to attend this year’s INQAAHE Forum in Bucharest. Every session was thought-provoking and full of interesting discussion. Thank you to ARACIS for being such excellent hosts, and we look forward to working together more closely in the future through our MoU.'