Bologna Process progress as university teaching watchdog launched

Commissioner Figel: launch will “benefit Europe as a whole”.

EQAR – the European Quality Assurance Register in Higher Education – will be responsible for ensuring that national quality assurance agencies are doing their jobs properly.

The register, which is due to be operational by summer 2008, will be governed and co-funded by a non-profit association of stakeholders, social partners and governments.

This is an important underpinning of the Bologna Process aim of creating a single European Higher Education Area, by removing obstacles to student and academic mobility and developing a system of easily readable and comparable degrees that simplify comparison between qualifications across Europe.

EU member states already have quality assurance agencies of one sort or another. The hope is EQAR will improve the quality of national agencies and allow higher education institutions to choose between different agencies, if that is compatible with national arrangements.

Speaking at the launch in Brussels earlier this week, Ján Figel, European Commissioner for education, youth and culture, said EPAR is an important element in the chain of information tools that are needed to make European higher education more transparent and more attractive for our own citizens and for students and scholars from other continents.

“I welcome the launch of the register because it enhances the quality culture in higher education, which will in turn benefit Europe as a whole.”