The National Entity for Accreditation and Quality Assurance in Higher Education of Serbia (NEAQA) organized on Thursday, December 5th, 2019, at the amphitheatre V at the Faculty of Law of the University of Belgrade, another training for reviewers, who have not previously received the required training.
The reviewers were welcomed by prof. Jelena Kočović, PhD, Director of the NEAQA. Professor Kočović pointed out that the new Law on Higher Education from 2017 and the regulations on standards and procedures for accreditation and external quality assurance, which are in line with European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assistance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG), have shifted the focus of accreditation and external quality assurance procedures of higher education institutions and study programmes from the Commission for Accreditation and Quality Assurance (CAQA) to the Peer-review panels. These changes in regulation gave more importance to the peer-review panels’ reports, but also increased the responsibility of the reviewers.
The training was led by members of the CAQA: prof. Ivana Stojanovic, PhD, topic “External quality assurance and self-evaluation”, prof. Ilija Kovacevic, PhD, topics “Initial Accreditation” and “Accreditation of Higher Education Institutions”, and prof. Jovan Stepanović, PhD, topic “Accreditation of study programmes”. More than 340 reviewers attended the training.
This training is part of the continuing education for reviewers (teachers, students and employers’ representatives) organized by the NEAQA in line with the Action Plan for implementation of the NEAQA’s Strategy for the period 2019 – 2022.
The NEQA plans to organize more webinars and trainings for reviewers in other Serbian university centres during 2020 in line with the Action Plan. So far, over 800 reviewers (teachers, employers’ representatives and students) have completed training for reviewers. The list of reviewers includes over 700 teachers from Serbian higher education institutions, over 100 teachers from foreign higher education institutions, over 400 employers’ representatives and over 150 students.
