Seminar on Quality Assured Fast-track Recognition of Foreign Higher Education Qualifications - QUASAR, 13th December 2013, Belgrade | ERI SEE

The seminar was organised by the ERI SEE Secretariat (in the process of being established), Regional Cooperation Council, with the support of the Centre for Education Policy, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia and the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia.

The purpose of the seminar was to review the Erasmus+ proposal Quality Assured (QA) Fast-Track Recognition of Foreign Higher Education Qualifications – QUASAR, to discuss possible roles and responsibilities of partners in the project as well as any open issues, to reach agreement on partners to be included in the project, and to present the idea for the creation of database containing the results of the external quality assurance. The seminar gathered representatives of ministries of education, ENIC/NARIC offices, government agencies for education, Centre of Education Policy, ERI SEE Secretariat and the European Quality Assurance Register.

During the seminar, the participants discussed open questions that may rise during the project implementation in relation to QA and recognition, and that should be considered, such as: creation of the culture of QA (and not only simple technical fulfillment of the standards) which encompasses the management and key stakeholders; use of qualification frameworks not only with focus on levels but also other key elements in recognition; the unified understanding of recognition; the meaning of the fast-track/automatic recognition. The participants emphasized and agreed on more occasions that the fast-track procedure for the recognition should be based on the QA procedures with external evaluation.

The sustainability of project was also discussed – the Register of the institutions and/or qualifications following the fast-track procedure will be established, and after the end of the project, maintained by the ERI SEE, which will clearly be described in the project.

The agenda of the seminar can be found here.