Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the 'Proposal for a Council Recommendation on European cooperation in quality assurance in higher education'
Date: 1997-10-29
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: EU programme, European cooperation, education, higher education, teaching curriculum

21. 1. 98

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 19/39

excessive increases in the cost of imported energy, or a
decline in the quality and efficiency of the supply of oil,
electricity or natural gas to which European consumers
have been accustomed for decades. It is vital, therefore,
that the energy sector — and hence energy policy — are
able to rise to these challenges and meet the demands of
European citizens.

3.10.
This Communication could thus serve as the
basis for a real programme for the energy sector. The
Economic and Social Committee could be consulted
again and have another chance to make a positive

contribution to the document. Finally, this programme
for energy policy could be included in the discussions
on Agenda 2000, which will include debates on the
challenges and opportunities opened up by EU enlarge-
ment, the overall financial outlook and the new operating
framework for the institutions. This would also mean
that the European Commission’s Directorate-General
for energy would have a substantial work programme
covering several years, which would consolidate the role
of the energy sector in a European Union which is
geographically larger, economically more competitive
and socially more cohesive.

Brussels, 29 October 1997.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Tom JENKINS

Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Proposal for a Council Recommen-
dation on European cooperation in quality assurance in higher education’

(98/C 19/11)

On 5 June 1997 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under
Article 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned
proposal.

The Section for Social, Family, Educational and Cultural Affairs, which was responsible for
preparing the Committee’s work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 17 October 1997. The
rapporteur was Mr Rodrı´guez Garcı´a Caro.

At its 349th plenary session (meeting of 29 October 1997), the Economic and Social Committee
adopted the following opinion by 112 votes, with one abstention.

1.

Introduction

Article 126(1) of the Treaty establishing the
1.1.
European Community states that the Community shall
contribute to the development of quality education by
encouraging cooperation between Member States and
by supporting and supplementing action designed to
attain the objectives of the Treaty, while fully respecting
the responsibilities of the Member States.

1.2.
Given the interest shown by the Member States
in improving the quality of higher education in their
universities, the Council meeting of Education Ministers
held in November 1991 urged Community action in the
field of quality assessment. In 1994 the Commission and
the Member States implemented two pilot projects with
the aim of assessing the quality of teaching and learning
in a few specific subject areas in selected institutions.

1.3.
At the time this action was launched, quality
assessment systems had been developed to different
degrees in the Member States. Consequently, the funda-
mental aim of the projects was to raise awareness of
the need for quality assessment in higher education
establishments, with a view to improving the actual
teaching received by students.

The results obtained in the pilot projects and the
1.4.
conclusions drawn from this interesting experiment
were set out in an information note presented by Mrs
Cresson to the Council meeting of Education Ministers
on 6 May 1996. The Council took note of the Com-
mission’s intention to produce a recommendation fol-
lowing the guidelines of the note.

C 19/40

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

21. 1. 98

1.5.
In accordance with Article 126(4) of the Treaty,
the Council, acting on a proposal from the Commission,
presented this draft recommendation which it has
submitted to the Economic and Social Committee for
opinion.

1.6.
The Committee regards it as extremely important
to address the quality of higher education from a
Community perspective and endorses the approach
adopted by the Council and the Commission to achieve
their objectives.

The systematic application of the methodology of
quality assurance as an instrument for continuously
improving quality is the best way of achieving genuine
quality higher education in the Union’s teaching estab-
lishments. It will encourage university education in the
Member States and make it easier to draw comparisons
between different education systems in the Union.

2. Proposal for a recommendation

The proposal presented by the Council has two basic
objectives which are consistent with the further develop-
ment of the actions undertaken by the Community in
this field. Firstly, it is intended to alert the Member
States to the need to establish quality assurance systems
in their higher education establishments; secondly, it
places at the disposal of the Member States and their
educational institutions a series of support measures
centred on the creation of a European Quality Assurance
Network.

The content of the recommendation can be summarized
briefly as follows:

The proposal recommends that the Member

2.1.
States:

2.1.1.
Create transparent systems of quality assess-
ment and assurance in order to guarantee the quality of
higher education, help establishments to use quality
assurance methods, and serve as a support for cooper-
ation based on mutual experience.

2.1.2.

Base these systems on the following principles:

— autonomous and independent assessors;

— appropriate procedures;

— a mix of internal and external assessment;

— involvement of all players;

— publication of assessment reports.

Ensure that follow-up measures are adopted to
2.1.3.
enable higher education establishments to implement
plans for improving quality.

Ensure that education authorities and those
2.1.4.
responsible for establishments give due priority to

exchange and cooperation in the field of quality assess-
ment and assurance.

2.2.

The proposal urges the Commission to:

2.2.1.
Assurance Network with the following tasks:

Support the creation of a European Quality

— exchange of information and experience;

— technical assistance to Member States;

— assistance to institutions wishing to cooperate in
quality assessment and assurance, particularly in the
Socrates thematic networks;

— assistance to institutions, providing information on
methodology, facilitating contact with experts, etc.;

— creation of links between quality assessment and
other Community activities under the Socrates and
Leonardo programmes;

— preparation of methods for facilitating the inte-

gration of graduates into the labour market.

Present a report every two years on the develop-
2.2.2.
ment of quality assurance systems in the Members
States and on cooperation activities, with proposals for
strengthening these systems.

3. Comments

3.1. General comments

The Committee welcomes the Commission
3.1.1.
initiative in the form of a proposal for a Council
recommendation. Treaty Article 126 establishes quite
clearly the Community’s obligation to contribute to the
development of quality education. Although the term
‘education’ is broad and covers different stages in the
education of an individual, the Committee sees the
approval of this recommendation as an important and
encouraging step forward.

The above-mentioned obligation can only be fulfilled if
we know whether the teaching being given to students
really is of a high quality. Hence there is no better way
of knowing whether higher education meets quality
standards than to develop a range of measures, such as
those which concern us here, to encourage awareness of
the need to establish quality assurance systems in
higher education establishments while at the same time
providing the means and methods whereby quality can
be assessed.

21. 1. 98

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 19/41

3.1.2.
Young people wishing to embark on higher
education in the different establishments in the Member
States have an empirical and traditional knowledge of
the quality of education that these establishments offer
their students.

A familiar, comparative quality assessment system in
each and every higher education institution would
enhance the teaching in these institutions both at national
and Community level through their legitimate wish to
improve on their own past performance and outrival
other institutions in the quality of teaching. Not only
would such a system help to improve quality, but citizens
would have information on quality levels in different
educational establishments.

3.1.3.
At the brink of the new millennium and in
a technologically advanced society that uses quality
assurance and total quality as an undisputed basis for
progress and best service to the customer or user, we
must do everything possible to provide higher education
establishments with the means to develop quality assess-
ment methods.

Consequently, the Committee feels that it is necessary
to adopt initiatives promoting quality assurance methods
in education as a sure means of improving the end-
product of the education system. At the same time,
looking for new ways of bringing universities closer to
society may help the former to educate students in such
a way that they are able to adjust to present realities
and face the situation that awaits them when they have
to integrate into the labour market and into society
itself.

3.1.4.
The Committee agrees on the need to introduce
quality assessment systems into the different higher
education institutions of the Member States. However,
quality assurance cannot be imposed; it must be accepted
by the main players who, in this case, are the teaching
staff and the academic authorities. For this to happen,
as a prior step and perhaps while the quality systems
are in the process of being set up, the Member States
would have to take appropriate steps to create structures
in higher education establishments whose task would
be to encourage and assist the understanding and
implementation of quality assurance methods. A sugges-
tion along these lines should be incorporated in the text
of the recommendation.

The Committee thinks that quality will improve and
have better prospects if it is approached from the
perspective of the institutions themselves, on a basis of
consensus rather than imposed from above. The methods
and techniques of quality assurance require the construc-
tive participation of the teaching staff. Without their
assent to these methods, internal assessment is impos-
sible and external assessment cannot analyse in depth.

For this reason even more effort should be focused on
raising the awareness of the teaching staff than on the
academic authorities.

3.1.5.
The Treaty expressly rules out the possibility
of harmonizing education systems. This incontrovertible
fact does not in principle rule out the adoption of duly
agreed and standardized assessment systems whereby
some common basic criteria can be established for
comparing the quality of the different education systems
and establishments.

The Committee is also against establishing league tables
or classifications of teaching establishments, but does
believe that students and society in general should be
aware of the quality levels of their teaching establish-
ments, especially if they are supported by public money.

Besides allowing each Member State and teaching
establishment to use its own criteria, the Commission
should at the same time encourage the implementation
of common criteria which show the level of teaching
quality from a Community perspective.

3.1.6.
The Committee believes that, with both a local
and a European input, cooperation on quality issues
would go much further than just knowledge of the
methods and systems used. It would also highlight the
shortcomings of some institutions in relation to others
when it comes to achieving higher levels of quality, since
all institutions would be assessed using identical criteria
and standards.

In other words, once you have identified your own
shortcomings, the example of others, as revealed by a
common assessment method, can serve as a model for
meeting the objective of improving quality. Improving
quality is the ultimate objective of quality assurance;
identifying undesirable situations which are amenable
to improvement and implementing solutions to the
problems detected is the ultimate purpose of any quality
assurance process in an institution.

Consequently, the Committee would emphasize the
advantages of aligning certain assessment procedures,
including external assessment, as a means of improving
quality.

3.1.7.
The Committee would wish to make it clear
that unswerving respect should be shown to two
principles that affect the Member States and teaching
establishments and are mentioned and argued over
throughout the Commission document and this draft
opinion and which may give rise to confusion. These
two principles are:

— under no circumstances is there any question of
harmonizing the education policies of the Member
States, nor therefore their education systems or the
courses given by teaching establishments. The

C 19/42

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

21. 1. 98

Committee would, however, wish to stress that for
the recommendation to be sufficiently valid, it is
necessary to move firmly towards the adoption of
quality assurance systems which include standard-
ized assessment methods which can be used by all
those who voluntarily accept assessment as a system
for helping to bring about improvements and do not
regard it as an imposition. The Committee thinks
that the text of the recommendation should be
clearer on this point;

— it should be expressly stated that the principle of
university autonomy is neither under debate nor
called into question in the opinion. It is however
important for citizens to be aware which teaching
establishments in Europe have introduced assess-
ment as a systematic quality assurance method in
their organizations. Citizens not only have the right
to be informed of quality levels in the institutions
which apply these systems, but also to know which
institutions use standardized quality assessment
methods. Information is a key element in our society
and for this reason the Committee believes that such
information should be available to citizens, possibly
through a periodic vademecum containing a list of
Community higher education establishments which
have assessment systems based on the principles of
quality assurance.

3.2. Specific comments

3.2.1.
The Committee considers that, in line with the
title of the proposed recommendation, which centres on
European cooperation in quality assurance in higher
education, the word ‘assessment’ should be deleted from
the text of the proposal since it is never mentioned
separately but merely precedes quality assurance repeat-
edly throughout the text.

The Committee does not wish to exclude the idea of
assessment from the proposal, but to enrich it by
integrating it into the meaning of quality assurance as
an essential part of the system. Quality assurance is
a methodological process of which assessment is a
fundamental part, but it also comprises other actions
which seek to improve what we are doing, such as the
search for solutions to the problems detected, their
implementation and a reassessment of the new situation.

In order to make the meaning of the recommendation
clearer, it is therefore proposed that the simultaneous
references to quality assessment and assurance be
deleted.

The Committee believes that the criteria and
3.2.2.
standards implemented in each institution, as part
of the internal quality assessment method, must be
anchored in the institution’s own particular context. In
the early stages, comparison with the surrounding
environment provides the best information on quality
levels.

The recommendation should, as far as possible, stress
the promotion of the concept of quality assurance in
teaching establishments, in order to prompt increasing
awareness of the need for it.

The exchanges of information and experience planned
as possible tasks for the European Quality Assurance
Network should focus initially on alerting people to the
need to use quality assurance in teaching establishments,
encouraging the exchanges and meetings required to
pass on the experience of those who practise it to those
who wish to practise it.

3.2.3.
The Committee considers that since this pro-
posed recommendation has a very precise objective but
is at the same time very open in its possibilities, it is not
necessary to include, along with the guidelines on how
to promote the participation of institutions in the
methods of quality assurance, purely methodological
and procedural aspects such as are included in the
explanations under point IB.

The Committee thinks that the general message to be
put across is that of encouraging and promoting quality
assurance among those institutions not familiar with it
or not using it and of strengthening and supporting its
use in those institutions already employing it.

3.2.4.
In connection with point IB, the Committee
thinks that students have a key role to play in the process
of assessing quality. The relationship between hopes
and achievements, between the expectations placed by
students in their studies and what they see themselves
as having actually achieved, makes the young university
student a necessary part of quality assessment.

In this respect, the Committee agrees with the approach
of the recommendation. The opinion of students, ob-
tained and drawn up on the basis of quality assurance
methods, can provide valuable information for im-
proving quality.

3.2.5.
The Committee believes it is both useful and
necessary to create a European Quality Assurance
Network as proposed in the recommendation. However,
its tasks may seem incomplete without a component
enabling it to establish comparisons at national and
Community level as to the quality of teaching and of
the institutions themselves.

In other words, the tasks of the network should include
the further development of assessment methods that
are applicable to all subjects and higher education
establishments, with a view to drawing comparisons at
European level. Finally, and bearing in mind that
assessment of a fixed criterion requires comparison with
an accepted standard, the Committee considers that
European-level comparisons could have a useful role to
play in the European dimension of education.

21. 1. 98

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 19/43

3.2.6.
The Committee’s view is also supported by the
third recital of the recommendation, which highlights
the increased awareness in higher education institutions
of the need to be able to judge the quality of studies
available in other countries and compare it with that of
studies available within their own education systems.

The Committee considers that this recital fully justifies
incorporating these tasks into the European-level tasks
of the network.

3.2.7.
The Committee, as a socio-economic body,
would express its great concern for improving the
integration of graduates
into the labour market,
especially bearing in mind how competitive this market
is at the moment. Those best geared to meet the needs
of the market will be those who receive the best offers
of employment enabling them to integrate into the
market.

While the Committee agrees that there is a need to
improve the integration of young graduates into the
labour market, it does not see the link between quality
assessment and the ‘preparation of methods to achieve
better integration’. Any increase in quality leads to an
improvement of training and, consequently, increases
the young person’s chances of entering the labour
market; but the aim of quality assessment methods and
procedures is, among other things, to enable us to draw
comparisons between what we think should happen and
what happens in reality.

The methods of quality assurance show, through the
process of assessment, whether it is possible to improve
the teaching given to students to train them for entry
onto the labour market, including a reassessment of any
corrective measures taken. The methods of quality
assurance cannot on their own, however, improve the
integration of graduates in the labour market.

Therefore, the Committee believes that point II 1(f) of
the recommendation should be made more clear, since
its current wording does not clearly state the role of the
network in this respect.

3.2.8.
In the report on the results obtained during the
period 1995/1996 by the Community action programme
in the field of education, Socrates (COM(97) 99 final),
on which the Committee has recently delivered its
opinion, the Commission recognizes that the programme
exceeded its budget due to the large demand for projects
and subsidies.

The proposal for a recommendation considered by this
opinion states that the European Quality Assurance

Brussels, 29 October 1997.

Network may receive financial support within the
framework of the Socrates and Leonardo programmes.

The Committee does not understand how it will be
possible to assign funds from these two programmes
when the Commission has had to propose an increase
in the Socrates budget in order to cover the last part of
the five-year period. If this initiative has not been
provided for in the budget, the budgetary difficulties
will increase if the network is included under the funds
allocated to Socrates and Leonardo.

The Committee believes that the importance of quality
assurance in higher education is such that it justifies the
allocation of specific funds. It therefore urges the
Commission and the Member States to ensure financial
support for the measures proposed in the recommen-
dation.

3.2.9.
In the recommendation, one of the principles
upon which quality assurance systems are based is that
of involving all the main players. It recognizes the need
for the social partners to be involved in the expert groups
considering the external component of assessment.

The Committee believes that socio-economic operators
can play an important role by providing the benefit of
their own experience which can be useful from a
methodological point of view. Companies in particular
have a long history of implementing quality assessment
methods and often have a broad experience in quality
assurance. Indeed, these concepts emerged in the business
world, constantly concerned as it is with improving
quality and service to the customer.

Consequently, the Committee feels it is both important
and necessary to give employers’ organizations the role
they deserve in the creation of the planned European
Quality Assurance Network, thus completing, along
with the organizations representing the workers, the
active participation of the socio-economic players in the
network.

3.2.10.
In the interests of greater efficiency, and with
a view to reducing costs, the Committee considers that
it is necessary to agree on specific mechanisms for better
cooperation between the European Quality Assurance
Network and the networks which have emerged in the
wake of the Socrates (1) and Leonardo programmes.

(1) See also: OJ C 287, 22. 9. 1997, p. 23, ‘Opinion of the
Economic and Social Committee on the Proposal for a
Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council
amending the Decision 819/95/EC establishing the Com-
munity action programme Socrates’.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Tom JENKINS