1. Belgrade, november 2007 THE NATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS FRAMEWORK IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN ROMANIA: ACTIONS AND PLANS Prof. dr. Dumitru MIRON Secretary of state Prof.dr. Sorin Eugen ZAHARIA Head of ACPART

2. Belgrade, november 2007 1. Globalisation and competences

3. Belgrade, november 2007 Competences-based international competitiveness Requires and provides competences Intelligent enterprises Provides competences Entrepreneurial universities Concordance between the educational offer and the competences required by the labour market in order to support competitiveness Economic world Academic world

4. Belgrade, november 2007 2. Objectives of the Qualification Framework for Higher Education

5. Belgrade, november 2007 ► The rationale for the QFHE is to provide a mechanism to relate national frameworks to each other as to enable: 1. International transparency and comparability between and across universities ; with the employers and other stakeholders;  Instrument: Diploma Supplement; 2. International recognition of qualifications 3. International mobility of learners and graduates  Learners can ultimately have greater confidence that the outcomes of study abroad will contribute to a qualification sought in their country.  A framework will also be of particular help in supporting the development and recognition of joint degrees from more than one country; 4. Optimal insertion on the global labour market

6. Belgrade, november 2007 3. National Agency for Qualifications in Higher Education and Partnership with Economic and Social Environment - ACPART

7. Belgrade, november 2007 Missions (1): to elaborate, implement, and update the national framework for qualifications in higher education concerning the development, recognition and certification of qualifications based on the knowledge, abilities, and competences acquired by beneficiaries of the higher education system; to analyse compatibility of the study programmes curricula of higher education with national qualifications framework standards;

8. Belgrade, november 2007 Missions (2): to involve Romanian higher education institutions in the development of a European society based on knowledge and productivity, with a competitive and dynamic economy; to promote the opening of higher education institutions towards the socio-economic environment through cooperation actions among higher education institutions, economic operators and other organisations, aimed at developing specific partnerships, labour market research, an entrepreneurial dimension to Romanian universities, as well as knowledge transfer.

9. Belgrade, november 2007 4. National Qualification Framework Strategy for 2007-2010

10. Belgrade, november 2007 A. National Level  A.1. The development of National Qualifications Framework for Higher Education  A.2. The creation of National Register of Qualifications in Higher Education B. International Level  B.1. Exchanges of good practices;  B.2. Involvement in European actions for qualifications framework;  B.3. Harmonization oh the Romanian NQF with EQF and with other countries NQFs.

11. Belgrade, november 2007 A.1. The National Qualification Framework for Higher Education I.Pre – development Phase II.Development Phase III.Implementation Phase

12. Belgrade, november 2007 A.1. The National Qualification Framework for Higher Education I. Pre-development phase: -Establishment of the Advisory Committee at the ACPART level; -Clarification of terminology and concepts; -Analysis of Bologna documents (EHEA Framework) and EQF European Commission papers; -Printing a Glossary of qualifications framework.

13. Belgrade, november 2007 II. Development phase: 1. First step: buiding the Methodology for NQFHE The methodology content:  Objectives of NQF: transparency; mobility; employability; autonomy & accountability of universities.  Definition of the key concepts;  The descriptors necessary for the national qualifications framework;  The procedures that an institution has to respect in order to be given the right of certifying a qualification (the dossier for the validation of a qualification);  The National Register of Qualifications in Higher Education.

14. Belgrade, november 2007 2. Second step: Building a consensus on the NQFHE development and implementation

15. Belgrade, november 2007

16. 3. Third step: piloting the descriptors grid on 10 study programmes: -Sectoral workshop with universities and others stakeholders; -Framework development concept build on existing initiatives and provided opportunities for coherence; -Design of competences based curricula.

17. Belgrade, november 2007 4. The forth step: up-dating and improving the final version of the Romanian Methodology for NQFHE: -compatible to both EHEA framework and EQF; - adapted to the Romanian HE environment.

18. Belgrade, november 2007 Synergies: There is a synergetic relationship between the ACPART Agency and the quality assurance. The ACPART Agency manages the description of the higher education professional qualifications for each study programmes and validates the new qualifications, while nationals agencies for quality assurance evaluate the content and the quality of the process which ends by certifying a specific higher education program.

19. Belgrade, november 2007 ACPART Higher education institution National Agencies for QA MERY* Labour market requests *MERY – The Ministry of Education, Research and Youth Dossier for qualification validation Dossier with the notification for qualification approval Procedures that a HE institution has to respect in order to be given the right of certifying a qualification Notification -Evaluation; -Included in NQF.

20. Belgrade, november 2007 A.2. The development of the National Qualifications Register for Higher Education (NQRHE) The NRQHE should be seen as a multi-actor and multi- national tool of interest. - As a multi-actor tool, NRQHE represents the result of the collaboration among different stakeholders; - As a multi-national tool, NRQHE will be available on-line both in Romanian and in English, in order to ensure the national and international access to information.

21. Belgrade, november 2007 NRQHE has been started in his first experimental form, bringing together all the titles/qualifications given by the Romanian universities. This is in public use starting with 1st of May 2007 on the ACPART website. The future development of the Register will be supported by projects with Governmental and Structural Funds.

22. Belgrade, november 2007 B. INTERNATIONAL LEVEL B.1. Harmonization of the Romanian NQF with EQF and with other countries the NQFs  The Leonardo da Vinci Project 2006-4607/001-001 LE2-707 EQF ”Developing Key Methodological Units for the the Implementation of EQF by Means of NQFs – EQF by NQFs”. Its development period is January 1st, 2007 – December 31st, 2008.

23. Belgrade, november 2007  The general objective of the project is to exchange experiences and to develop and test modular grids of competences and key methodological units comprising principles, mechanisms and guidance tools for the elaboration of EQF and specific NQFs.  The project partners are: University of Versailles Saint- Quentin-en-Yvelines (France), Higher Education and Training Awards Council (Ireland), CROSS (Netherlands), The Ministry of Education and Research (Romania), The Association for Information Technology and Communication (Romania), University of Zaragoza (Spain), The National Recognition Information Centre (United Kingdom).  Project is financed by the European Commission through DGEAC.

24. Belgrade, november 2007  The Leonardo da Vinci Pilot Project FR/04/B/P/PP-151128 „European mechanism for distance information, orientation and validation of the jobs and qualifications in informatics and multimedia, from lifelong learning point of view” – EURO PORTIC promoted by the University of Versailles. Partner countries: France, Spain, Great Britain, Romania, Estonia.  The transnational cooperation project Socrates-Minerva 116530- CP-1-2004-1-FR-MINERVA-MPP „European programme of e- trainings and validation through competences in data- processing and multimedia” – e-FORMINFO promoted by the University of Versailles. Partner countries: France, Spain, Poland, Romania, Great Britain.

25. Belgrade, november 2007  The Leonardo da Vinci Project RO/05/B/F/PP175012 “Virtual training for young entrepreneurs of innovating business” - eNOV, promoted by ACPART. Partner countries: Romania, France, Greece, Spain, Belgium, Poland and UK.  The Leonardo da Vinci Mobility Project RO/2006/97041/EX „Experts training in the field of quality assurance and qualifications in HE” – CALEX promoted by the ACPART Agency. Partner countries: France, Ireland, Spain.

26. Belgrade, november 2007 5. Publications

27. Belgrade, november 2007  Papers and support materials for information and dissemination regarding the system of qualifications at European and national level  „Conceptual bases for the development of NQFHE in Romania” (May, 2007)  Proceedings of UNISO 2006 (May, 2007)  Proceedings of UNISO 2007 (to be published)

28. Belgrade, november 2007 6. Events

29. Belgrade, november 2007 ►Summer University „UNIversity in SOciety – UNISO” 2007 „Lifelong learning and qualifications in higher education” was organized in Versailles (France) - 9-12 July 2007 by ACPART in collaboration with the University of Versailles with the support of DG EAC of EC, University of Rouen, University Paris 6 Pierre et Marie Curie, University of Picardy "Jules Verne“, Regional Council of Ile de France, General Council of Yvelines, and Romanian Association for Knowledge Transfer. 2008 “for a Competences based Higher Education: Challenges and solutions ”, in Iasi (Romania) – 15 -20 of July

30. Belgrade, november 2007 International workshop: EQF and NQFs Role in Supporting Professional Career Development

31. Belgrade, november 2007 However… There is still a long way! -The government approval of the Methodology for NQFHE; -All study programmes leading to the new degrees, should be (re)designed to be linked to the framework… -…along with credit transfer and accumulation system -Curriculum design, approaches to teaching, learning and student assessment should also reflect the new approach -Internal and external QA process should be linked to the framework with efforts to avoid « a technology of standards » -The need for a critical debate in the implementation process

32. Belgrade, november 2007 7. Conclusions

33. Belgrade, november 2007 1. The necessity for improving the dialogue with universities, stakeholders, students: -to explain; -to build up together the NQFs; -to have a feedback. 2. The NQF should be an opportunity for a centered student higher education as well as for reviewing and possibly re- designing the qualifications descriptions and even the entire qualifications system; 3. The NQF to be characterized by: -flexibility; -applicability; -visibility.

34. Belgrade, november 2007 4. Qualifications framework should support: -the mobility; -curricula reform; -better understanding of study cycle and learning outcomes after each cycles. 5. Work towards fully implementing a national qualifications framework based on learning outcomes by 2010.

35. Belgrade, november 2007 6. Linking the development of the qualifications framework to other Bologna action lines:  quality assurance,  credit transfer and accumulation systems,  lifelong learning,  flexible learning paths and the social dimension.  the Recognition of Qualifications, particularly the diploma supplement and quality assurance

36. Belgrade, november 2007 7. Make formal links between the Bologna Process and the ENIC/NARIC network to undertake further work on developing and implementing national action plans for recognition.

37. Belgrade, november 2007 Stocktaking Ministries Conference of London 2007

38. Belgrade, november 2007

41. Thank you for your attention! National Agency for Qualifications in Higher Education and Partnership with Economic and Social Environment (ACPART) Bdv. Schitu Magureanu, no. 1, et.III Bucharest, 050025 Tel.: 0040/21/3130050 Fax:0040/21/3130053 E-mail: office@acpart.ro; Web: www.acpart.ro