New Perspectives of Quality Assurance in European Higher Education

The concept of quality in higher education has become an increasingly important matter for institutions, as well as for public policy and debates on education. Quality assurance has been used for the overall improvement of institutions and their management. As the demand for higher education has increased, so has the demand for its accountability, reliability and value for money (Harvey and Askling 2003). Quality assurance agencies have the responsibility to institutions and the public to assure that the education and experience providers deliver is of a good standard, in order to maintain trust in the education system nationally and internationally. Most importantly, however, quality assurance review mechanisms provide valuable recommendations to how institutions can enhance their provisions. Undoubtedly, quality assurance has seen many improvements since the launch of the Bologna Process in 1999. Given the new developments of quality assurance at European level the purpose of the present paper is to realize a comparative analysis between the new and the old ESG with a look on the impact that the policy document has on Romanian Higher Education. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.