The degree of compliance of the National quality assurance system with the Standards and Guidelines for quality assurance in the European higher education Area.

The “Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in European Higher Education Area” (hereafter: ESG) were translated into Russian for the purposes of widespread familiarization by the HEI community, and special seminars are held to acquaint the heads of HEIs as well as experts involved in expert reviews of HEI activities, with the ESG. Seminars are conducted 7 times a year, in 2005-2006 more than 600 people participated so far.

On the basis of the ESG, a standard model for internal quality assurance has been developed, and recommended for widespread application. One of the criteria for the accreditation of an HEI is the efficiency of the internal quality assurance system.

Correspondence to the ESG is defined as follows:

- annual monitoring of the quality of education of student and graduates is a condition of accreditation; educational management departments operate in each HEI, and in recent years in many HEIs such centres for the management and monitoring of the quality of education have been created;

- stimulation of the development of a culture of quality in HEIs—this is the goal with which the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Research annually holds a competition among internal quality assurance systems;

- all Russian HEIs annually submit reports on the main areas of their activity to the Central State Accreditation Database.

- one of the conditions of accreditation of the HEI is the presence of innovation activity.

The external expert review system meets ENQA Standards and Guidelines:

1. During the expert review period, the results of self-evaluation are taken into account.

2. External expert review procedures are sufficiently well developed and organized.

3. Criteria are developed for accreditation of HEIs and individual educational programmes. Criteria are officially approved by decree of the head of the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Research.

4. Since 2005 expert training has been performed, including: intramural training, work placement and certification. In order to enhance the level of confidence in expert activities, the Guild of Experts has been created. Employers are being involved in expert reviews, as are students (as survey respondents).

5. The results of external review procedures are presented in reports of expert panels, final reports for the Accreditation Board, Register and reference books. Reports of the expert panels will be published from the end of 2006 on the website of the National Accreditation Agency (NAA).

6. Expert panels will identify changes that have occurred since the previous expert review and develop recommendations to improve the quality of education. Reports of expert panels will contain conclusions and recommendations for the improvement of the educational process.

7. External review of HEIs is performed regularly, but no less frequently than once every 5 years.

The timetable for external reviews is compiled for the coming calendar year, by HEI request, and is officially approved by the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Research.

8. Analysis of the effectiveness of expert review and accreditation across the entire system is performed annually by NAA, and published in an annual Analytical Report.

The ESG for the accreditation agency are mostly observed by the National Accreditation Agency (NAA), which allowed this organisation to join the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) as a candidate for membership:

1. External quality evaluation of HEIs (at the institutional and programme level) is conducted on a regular basis, no less frequently than once every 5 years.

2. NAA is officially recognized at the federal level, in compliance with the Act of the Ministry of Education and a Government Act.

3. NAA is responsible for the compilation of the final report on accreditation of HEIs and their programmes.

4. NAA has developed and uses student feedback technologies, and is testing technologies for surveying employers and graduates.

5. The criteria for external evaluation and the procedures used by NAA are determined in advance, on the basis of study and analyze of international experience and statistical data, and are open to the public.

6. The appeals procedure is determined legislatively, via a court of law. In order to establish correspondence between the Russian system of quality assurance and the ESG, a Plan of Measures has been developed and approved, and the main HEIs and organisations in the realization of the Bologna Declaration have been determined (see 1.).

In the last two years, the following measures have been implemented to ensure compliance:

1. The State Accreditation Center was in 2005 reorganized to become the National Accreditation Agency, by a Government Act.

2. A website was created and is maintained in Russian and English, which is dedicated to the Russian accreditation system, and includes a Registry of accredited HEIs. For this purpose, the Regulations of HEIs now include their titles in English.

3. Since 2005 information about the international activities of HEIs has been collected and analyzed: the presence of branches and representative offices abroad, mobility of students, faculty and educational programmes, the implementation of joint programmes and projects with foreign HEIs, the issuance of European diploma supplements, etc.

4. Starting in 2005, training and certification of experts has been offered. On the initiative of experts that have undergone special training, the Guild of Experts was founded in June of 2006.

5. Since September of 2005, the journal Akkreditatsia v obrazovanii (‘Accreditation in Education’) has been published; the journal includes a CD supplement containing regulatory acts, and an Internet version that includes a digest in English.

6. Since September of 2006 a new technology has been deployed to involve students in the external review of HEIs.

7. An experiment in Internet-based testing has been active since June of 2005. Currently, three consecutive testing stages have been completed. During the third stage (in May-June of 2006) approximately 500 HEIs and 400,000 students participated in the project.

In order to ensure compliance by the Russian quality assurance system with the ESG of ENQA, NAA participated in a research project “Mapping external quality assurance in Central and Eastern Europe” in 2005-2006, conducted within the framework of CEENET, the Central and Eastern European Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education.

For the purposes of subsequent work ensuring the compliance of the Russian system of quality assurance with ESG, an international conference is planned in St. Petersburg in the near future (in May of 2007).

Representatives of three networks—CEENET (the conference organizer), the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and the Eurasian Quality Assurance Network (EAQAN)—have been invited to participate in the conference, which will for the first time allow the problems of quality assurance in the countries of Europe and the former Soviet Republics to be explored.