ERI SEE supporting the higher education developments
ERI SEE has been supporting developments in the area of higher education through the work of the RCC-ERI SEE Joint Working Group for the Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications for a number of years, facilitating the recognition processes and making connections between recognition and quality assurance bodies.
Following the official launch in 2020, the Joint Information System (JIS) continued to facilitate the recognition of academic qualifications in the Western Balkan region. Currently it contains information on accreditation of over 6000 HEIs and study programmes in six Western Balkans economies Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia. The next updated round is scheduled for the beginning of 2023 with the data provided by each economy.
As a part of the continuous ERI SEE efforts towards increased transparency of higher education systems in the region and relying on reliable data, the quality assurance agencies received a two-day training on data management for their employees working on the accreditation data collection and analysis. The overall goal of the training was to provide the participants with necessary practical knowledge in the dataset development, strengthen their capacities of data management, and contribute to making the data management process at national and regional level more synchronised and efficient.
In addition, following the successful closure of negotiations on regional Agreement on recognition of Higher Education Qualifications, paving steps for automatic recognition and confirmed by signing the Agreement during the Berlin Summit, ERI SEE organized supporting activities that would further facilitate the recognition and QA processes.
In October 2022 the ERI SEE organised the Workshop on the recognition of higher education qualifications and quality assurance in higher education in the cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia (MSE), and Agency for Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Croatia (AZVO), and supported by the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC). The main goal of the workshop was to (1) address the policy updates in the field of recognition of higher education qualifications, (2) enforce the link between the recognition of HE qualification and accreditation (3) discuss the use of information tools for recognition and accreditation processes and (4) organise the informal meeting of the South Eastern European ENIC NARIC Network. Last but not least, the Working Group on Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications, together with the QA representatives, met in December 2022 in Sarajevo, to discuss activities planned for 2023, with the focus on implementation of the regional Agreement on recognition of higher education qualifications, establishment of Joint Master Degree programme in the region, and further capacity building activities for QA agencies as a support in meeting the European Standards and Guidelines requirements.
* This designation is without prejudice to positions on status and is in line with UNCSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.
