“Supporting European QA Agencies in meeting the ESG (SEQA-ESG)” is a project within the Erasmus + program, coordinated by ENQA, and an extraordinary opportunity for ANACEC, as a partner, to achieve one of its major objectives, namely to join ENQA as a full member and to be registered on EQAR. The implementation period of the project was 2020 - 2022, with the basic objective of supporting quality assurance agencies and national authorities in six countries (Albania, Czech Republic, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, and Slovakia) in creating a quality assurance system in accordance with the ESG 2015 (Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA).

In order to achieve the project's objectives, during its implementation, a series of activities took place - meetings, webinars, seminars - with the involvement of ENQA experts, aimed at elucidating the aspects that represent a challenge for quality assurance agencies in aligning their activities with European standards. Thus, the “National action plan on quality assurance of higher education in the Republic of Moldova for period 2021-2023” and the „Action plan for the external review of the National Agency for Quality Assurance in Education and Research” were developed and are currently in the implementation phase, and more recently ANACEC applied for membership to ENQA and EQAR.

On November 23rd the closing webinar of the project took place, which was attended by more than 40 participants, representatives of quality assurance agencies, ministries of education and higher education institutions.

During the webinar project partner agencies shared their experiences and presented their developments in addressing system/legal, organisational, and practice-related challenges in complying with the ESG.

Agencies also reflected on the key challenges that were addressed during the project:

• The role of legislative support in reinforcing the agency’s independence in the provision of external quality assurance;
• Managing expectations on external quality assurance: stakeholder involvement in building a fit-for-purpose quality assurance agency;
• Engagement of peer-review experts for the provision of external quality assurance.

Colin Tuck (Director of EQAR) first made an introduction into the state of implementation of the European Higher Education Area and the key commitments with regard to external quality assurance.

In the webinar, ANACEC showcased its experience in relation to the involvement of stakeholders in its quality assurance activities, the level of involvement and their role, challenges and future plans.

The webinar concluded with the reflections made by Cristina Ghitulica, Vice-president of ENQA and expert in the project, on the main lessons learnt on how to build an ESG-compliant quality assurance agency.

To view the full webinar, go to  https://bit.ly/3H1nlxF.

For more information on the project's activities, go to   https://bit.ly/3gu6SqR.