22 June 2016, Situation and Information Center of Rosobrnadzor: informational meeting on issues of the education quality assurance and evaluation

The meeting devoted to evaluation and quality assurance of education took place in the Situation and Information Centre of Rosobrnadzor. The representatives of QA agencies from Armenia, Germany, Kazakh Republic, Kyrgyz Republic and Lithuania participated in the event. The meeting was also attended by Dr. Iring Wasser (the President of the Central and Eastern European Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education – CEENQA; Managing Director of the Accreditation Agency specialized in reviewing degree programs in engineering, informatics, mathematics and the natural sciences – ASIIN).

The meeting opened with a welcome address of Sergey Bannikov, the Head of the State Services Department (Rosobrnadzor). He was followed by Sergey Kravtsov, the Head of Rosobrnadzor, who highlighted the challenging issues of the Russian education system and the state final examination in particular. The participants of the event discussed the achievements and current challenges in the Russian QA system.

Foreign colleagues got acquainted with the Internet portal “smotriege.ru” which was presented as a tool for monitoring the implementation of the Unified State Exam (USE) and a guarantee of equal access to higher education in Russia. June 22, 2016 was an additional day for undergoing exams in Geography, Foreign Languages, Chemistry, Social Science, Computer Sciences and ICT, and the participants had the opportunity to watch the exam procedure in any subject of the Russian Federation. The Chairman of the All-Russian public organization “Russian Union of Youth” Pavel Krasnorutskiy told about the engagement of students in the monitoring of the USE.

The representative of the Main State Center for Education Evaluation, Vera Skorobogatova spoke on “The Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area”.

The report of NAA’s Director Lemka Izmaylova on the system of state accreditation as a tool for quality assurance of educational activities was of special interest and caused animated discussion among the participants. Foreign colleagues especially noted the methodology of experts’ selection carried out by means of the information system of NAA which operates according to the method of random selection to eliminate the conflict of interests during state accreditation as well as to ensure the maximum impartiality of the procedure. Dr. Iring Wasser suggested that this model should be presented as one of the world's best practices to ensure the objectivity of expert panels’ formation during external review.

During the meeting NAA’s representatives and leaders of foreign QA organizations were involved in a contentious debate on the education quality issues. NAA presented a working model of national accreditation, demonstrated its best practice, as well as the correlation of the state accreditation model with the ESG provisions. NAA’s leading experts explained the peculiar features of the implemented procedures, whereas the heads of the departments spoke on each stage of state accreditation.

Dr. Wasser thanked Mr. Kravtsov for the opportunity to discuss interesting topics with the leadership of Rosobrnadzor and was invited to discuss further cooperation with the Head of Rosobrnadzor.

In order to ensure the quality of higher education in the European area, NAA signed up agreements on cooperation and interaction with the Accreditation Agency specialized in reviewing degree programs in Engineering, Informatics, Mathematics and the Natural Sciences (ASIIN, Director – Iring Wasser, Germany), the Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation (FIBAA, Director – Birger Hendricks, Germany), the Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education (SKVC, Director – Nora Saburskiene, Lithuania), the National Center for Professional Education Quality Assurance (ANQA, Director – Ruben Topchyan, Armenia) and the Agency for Quality Assurance in the Field of Education (EdNet, Director – Onolkan Umankulova, Kyrgyz Republic).