Statement

Over the last few weeks, EQAR has received several inquiries related to the design and implementation of external quality assurance of higher education in Serbia during the ongoing university protests. These inquiries mainly relate to a public statement by the national quality assurance agency of the Republic of Serbia (NEAQA) in which both EQAR and the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) are named.

We would like to clarify that NEAQA has not been registered on EQAR since the end of 2017, as a result of the external evaluation of the agency (or more precisely, its predecessor body CAQA) which concluded in 2018. EQAR registration serves to demonstrate compliance with the ESG. All details of the decision not to renew NEAQA’s registration on EQAR, are fully public on our website here.

We emphasise that as a consequence of the termination of NEAQA’s registration in 2017, EQAR does not have any formal mandate to monitor its activities, nor does the agency currently fall under any supervision regime of EQAR.

Furthermore, in evaluating agencies’ compliance with the ESG, EQAR considers only whether the agency has external QA methodologies compliant with the ESG, whether these are implemented consistently and with respect of all parts of the evaluation process (ESG Part 2), and whether the agency as an entity respects the organisational-level standards of the ESG (ESG Part 3).

Therefore, EQAR does not, in any circumstances, evaluate the national political context or how national quality assurance standards are applied in extraordinary circumstances, as long as this does not directly relate to the ESG.

EQAR remains committed to serving the public interest as the official register of ESG-compliant quality assurance agencies in the European Higher Education Area by applying the ESG consistently and thoroughly. EQAR also remains at the disposal of all interested stakeholders for clarification on this or similar matters.