Objectives

This first conference on quality assurance in VET and higher education (HE), jointly organised with the European Commission, aims at contributing to the achievement of the Lisbon goals. The Copenhagen objectives as reaffirmed in the Maastricht Communiqu will form the basis for a presentation of quality assurance initiatives in VET as well as those carried out in HE in the framework of the Bologna process.

Developing a common European Qualifications Framework (EQF) is considered a milestone on the way to enhancing mobility within Europe and is thus an important Community objective. Creating synergies between VET and HE is essential to achieve this objective and to contribute to an effective lifelong learning strategy. This makes it necessary to establish transversal issues and develop common approaches. 

A European study, commissioned by Austria, aiming at an analysis of good practice examples in terms of quality assurance will be carried out in the run-up to the conference. The studys main issues are as follows:

  • quality assurance in VET and HE at transnational, national, systemic and institutional level 
  • national implementation of quality assurance and quality development systems in VET and HE 
  • application of instruments and tools and implementation of processes developed 
  • existing synergies in terms of success achieved so far in quality assurance and development 
  • future cooperation models, mutual learning processes, networks between VET and HE (set up on voluntary basis)

Based on case studies the quality study is to identify where, within the European Union, quality assurance has already been put in place and how it works. The results will be presented in the course of the conference.

The conference will also provide an opportunity for representatives of VET and HE quality assurance networks to meet for the first time. The HE representatives are members of the European Association for Quality Assurance in HE (ENQA) in VET a similar network is currently being established.

Target group/number of participants
approx. 285 experts from VET and HE

Event details

Event Date(s)
11/05/2006 - 12/05/2006
Event Type
Conference
City
University of Graz, Universitδtsplatz 3, 8010 Graz
Country
Austria