Quality Assurance in the Finnish
                                               Higher Education
      Elements:
      •  National higher education policy (Ministry of 
         Education
          – e.g. Bologna process) 
      •  National evaluation ( FINHEEC), e.g.
          – Evaluations of higher education institutions: 
             • audits of quality assurance systems of higher education 
               institutions 
             • evaluations for the accreditation of the polytechnics
          – Programme and thematic evaluations
          – Accreditation of professional courses offered by higher 
            education institutions
          – Nomination of Centres of Excellence in HE
      •  Higher education institutions' own quality assurance 
         procedures and mechanisms
                                                             2
               Centres of Excellence in university education
      Nominated by FINHEEC
      •  Centres of excellence in university education 2007-
         2009
          – 2 at TKK (out of 20)
      •  Universities of excellence in adult education 2007-
         2009
          – Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration
          – Jyväskylä University
          – Helsinki University ofTechnology 
          – Turku University
                                                              3
              University’s own quality assurance, case TKK
      •  Everyday process development
      •  Development of QA system
      •  Nomination of Centres of Excellence in teaching
          – 3 internal Centres of Excellence
      •  Evaluation of departments, units, certain themes 
         (with help of external bodies, e.g. FINHEEC, EUA, 
         former CRE)
          – E.g. Evaluation of the Department of Civil and Environmental 
            Engineering
                                                              4
                                                              Quality Audits
        •  Quality is one of the focal development areas in the 
           formation of the EHEA (Bologna process, 
        •  In Finland improvement of QA by auditing the quality 
           assurance systems of HEIs (universities & 
           polytechnics)
        •  To ensure by Quality Audits:
                - international credibility
                - continuous improvement of operations in HEIs
        •  European standards and guidelines included in the 
           model (http://www.enqa.eu/files/ENQA%20Bergen
           %20Report.pdf)
                                                                              5
                                          Objectives (by FINHEEC)
        •  Support the HEIs in their quality assurance activities 
           and improvement of operational quality
        •  Promote dialogue on quality assurance and 
           interaction between HEIs and their stakeholders 
        •  Collect and publish best practices in QA and promote 
           their dissemination
        •  Audits as a development-oriented evaluation, which 
           has strong traditions in Finnish evaluation practice
        •  Evaluate the QA  system in terms of the audit criteria
        •  Determine whether the HEI passes the audit or 
           needs to undergo a re-audit 
                                                                              6