Viewpoints To Develop Quality Policies In Engineering Programs In European Higher Education Area

Quality assurance in Higher Education is by no means only a European concern. All over the world there is an increasing interest in quality and standards, reflecting both the rapid growth of higher education and its cost to the public and the private purse. Accordingly, if Europe is to achieve its aspiration to be the most dynamic and knowledge-based economy in the world, then European Higher Education will need to demonstrate: it takes the quality of its programmes and awards seriously and is willing to put into place the means of assuring and demonstrating that quality. The initiatives and demands, which are springing up both inside and outside Europe in the face of this internationalization of higher education, demand a response. The commitment of all those involved in the production of these proposals augurs well for the fulfillment of a truly European dimension to quality assurance with which to reinforce the attractiveness of the European Higher Education Area’s (EHEA) offer. The EHEA with its 40 states is characterized by its diversity of political systems, higher education systems, socio-cultural and educational traditions, languages, aspirations and expectations. This makes a single monolithic approach to quality, standards and quality assurance in Higher Education inappropriate. In the light of this diversity and variety, generally acknowledged as being one of the glories of Europe, technical universities set their face to develop their internal quality assurance systems according not only to the European standards and the guidelines, focusing more on what should be done than how they should be achieved, but also to different factors and sources. This paper identifies and explains all the sources that should be taken into account to provide the quality policies adequate to the technical teachings, including engineering accreditation programs, funding programs or improvement plans. It is showed with a practical case developed in the Quality Manual start up of a Spanish Engineering school. Current role of the Quality in the Higher Education Universities are becoming due to the new changes in the society 1 . Universities as part of this new society play an important role for generating new learning and for producing and transferring new knowledge and technologies to contribute solutions to the human, economic, political and cultural problems in the world. Universities have responded to this external pressure with diverse models: entrepreneurial, stakeholder, corporate, or managerial and academic capitalism universities 2 representing the market, competitive, virtual, service, business and other models in order to redefine their position face to the industry, market and the society in general. As consequence there have appeared new cross-boarding higher education providers that are expanding worldwide educational services. P ge 13384.1 The twenty-first century has begun with an explosion in the number of Higher Education students. Data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimate that enrolment has increased approximately from 72 million in 1999 to 133 million in 2004. Sanyal and Martin 3 , explain this situation due mainly to two reasons: the increase in social demand for Higher Education and in the economic need for more highly educated human resources. The increase in social demand is due to the democratization of the societies: increasing number senior citizens looks for culture for its own sake or getting better jobs. The student population has changed and there are more collectives than can be identified: from typical successful completers of secondary education, mature learners enrolled parttime in programs related to an occupation or for pleasure, students who have obtained qualification and are looking for specialized professional opportunities, who pursue education abroad, and those ones want to diversify their occupational activity. The increase in the economic need for skills requiring Higher Education. Globalization is based on in a new world information economy combining developments in information and communication technology (ICT) and organizational changes leading to a new international division of labor. The labor required is highly skilled and trained in technology. How do students, employers, governments, employers in industry and other stakeholders are keeping their edge in quality terms? The main commitment of the universities with all these changes and new role is towards quality, not as general concept but as something that evolves over time. New quality assurance systems are emerging. Quality in the context of the European Higher Education The issue of quality assurance has risen very high on the Bologna agenda and is seen now as one of the key instruments to promote the attractiveness of European Higher Education. It was made clear that in defining common criteria and methodologies in the European Higher Education is necessary to take into account the diversity of the various systems and traditions that will go into the construction of a comparable framework. Harmonization should be the result of the conjunct of these traditions and should under no circumstances mean their reduction to a common pattern. For the implantation of an effective culture of quality, it is essential that governments, Higher Education Institutions (HEI), quality agencies, teachers and students all participate, in view of the expectation that this process will benefit not only all agents involved but also society at large. The Berlin Communiqué while recognizing the role of HEIs in promoting quality invites the Quality Assurance (QA) and Higher Education communities to develop an agreed set of standards, procedures and guidelines on quality assurance 4. It is only possible to establish common criteria and methodologies if mutual trust among Institutions and agencies are achieved on a basis of greater transparency in accreditation processes. To that end it is essential to promote a peer review process among agencies. But this proposal had a risk. The Institutional Evaluation Programme has given Europe a solid experience in transnational evaluation, evaluating close to 120 universities in 35 different countries. This ten-year experience, combined with the outcomes of the Quality Culture project, points to the P ge 13384.2 fact that it is impossible to reach agreement on quality standards when dealing with a diversity of institutions across a whole continent. By the other side evaluation approaches that are based on standards, quantitative methods, sets of criteria or checklists will not improve quality meaningfully and may not even control it significantly because they will not capture the complexity of the educational enterprise. Autonomy is a precondition for a capacity to respond to change. Thus, university autonomy requires that each institution decides on its standards in the context of its mission and goals 5, assuming quality as the primary responsibility. A change of paradigm has taken place determined by the idea, that QA is or should be an essential part of the responsibility of a university. So the Graz Declaration claims that "the universities are responsible for developing internal quality culture" and the Berlin Communiqué says that "the primary responsibility for quality assurance in higher education lies with the institution itself and this provides the basis for the real accountability of the academic system within the national quality network." Licensing and certification is now at least looked at as a shared responsibility of the state and the scientific community. So in Europe corresponding to the role of the state and the role HEI have to play in the Bologna Process there is a double legitimation for QA: it is with the responsibility of HEI and of the governments. As discussed at the Graz Convention (May 2003), among the policy goals for an appropriate European QA dimension are: • Achieve greater compatibility while managing diversity of QA procedures. There is a great diversity of national procedures in Europe that needs to be accepted as this diversity reflects specific national circumstances that each national QA framework tries to address. Upholding a widely shared set of principles in the QA area would ensure compatibility while minimizing intrusiveness in national frameworks. • Achieve trust: It is evident from discussions with various key actors, that some believe that trust across Europe can be achieved only if all QA agencies follow similar procedures and guidelines. In other words, trust is based on professionalism, grounded in a set of standards. • Preserve and extend institutional autonomy while meeting the demands for accountability: It is essential that the development of a European QA dimension accompanies and extends institutional autonomy in order to ensure that QA is not merely window-dressing and a compliance exercise. The Berlin Communiqué acknowledges the central role that institutions must play in this respect. Quality assurance systems need to be flexible and embrace this diversity in order to ensure that higher education serves effectively society 6 . Stakeholders in the definition of quality policy in Engineering European Higher Education The statement of quality policy in HEI documents the authority for the implementation of a quality management system in the form signed by the dean or director in charge of the institution implementing the quality management system. It must express the intentions of the institution concerning the quality of the academic offer and the rest of services and products it supplies. It is a way to guarantee the coherence of the processes, products and services covered by the quality management system. P ge 13384.3 According to ISO 7 with respect to the capabilities enclosed in the quality policy for which the organization is seeking certification, top management should ensure that: • It