QAA to join Erasmus+ funded ENQA project

The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education is to join Italy's Agenzia Nazionale Di Valutazione Del Sistema Universitario E Della Ricerca (National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems) and Germany's Accreditation, Certification and Quality Assurance Institute, as partners in a new project to promote the 'Robust Quality Assurance of Transnational Education'.

The project is to be led by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and will be funded by Erasmus+, the European Union's programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe.

The purpose of this initiative is to promote good practice and transparency in the quality assurance of transnational education. The project will develop a self-assessment tool for quality assurance organisations to use in reflecting and improving their own processes, and will update a toolkit for quality agencies published by ENQA in 2015 to enhance the quality assurance of higher education provided across national borders.  

"We are very pleased to be part of this important and timely initiative," said Shannon Stowers, QAA's Head of International Policy & Engagement. "This truly international collaboration will develop and share effective practice in transnational education at a time when there is an increasing focus upon the significance, value and oversight of this mode of provision."

Since 2021, QAA has run the Quality Evaluation and Enhancement of UK Transnational Higher Education (QE-TNE) Scheme, an initiative originally commissioned by Universities UK and GuildHE. More than 70 UK higher education institutions participate in the Scheme, representing about 70 per cent of the UK higher education sector's entire TNE student population. The Scheme was commended in an independent report published last December by the Higher Education Policy Institute, which recommended that "as an ideal, the scheme should be expanded to include all UK transnational education providers".