The thought of a cooperation originated by a meeting in Warsaw on the 25th June last year, whereas the characteristics of the German and the Polish accreditation systems as well as ideas about current topics to quality assurance in the higher education have been exchanged. The Letter of Intent was signed in May 2013 by the Managing Directors of FIBAA, Hans-Jürgen Brackmann and Daisuke Motoki, and by the President of PKA, Dr. Marek Rocki.
Focus of the Letter of Intent
With this Letter of Intent the undersigned aims for concentrating their know-how in order to advance transparency and comparability within international higher education system. The German-Polish cooperation exceeds the exchange of experience and cognition: a mutual understanding of quality systems will be promoted; comparable assessment procedures will be developed in order to enable mutual recognition in accreditation – especially in joint programmes. ‚Joint Degrees have to pass through various national accreditations. The mutual recognition of accreditation results reduces considerably the effort for the Higher Education Institutions. For this reason this cross-border cooperation is essential`, comments Motoki.
A feature of the Polish higher education system is the high number of private institutions; their number is in Poland, besides in Russia and Rumania, one of the highest in Europe. Prospective students as well as employer are confronted with a large offer of study programmes in a wide range of quality - the spectrum goes from elitist to disputable. In order to warrant comparability and transparency, the federal accreditation commission PKA was founded 2002 as the ultimate authority for quality in Polish higher education. "With the establishment of PKA, a crucial cornerstone on the journey to the European Higher Education Area has been accomplished. Since the Bologna process and the starting point of the accreditation system, the Polish higher education market is in a ‘state of stress’: Reforms encounter (again and again) resistance on the part of the Higher Education Institutions. The Polish education policy has to do a lot of persuading. Additionally, Poland has to deal with the rising international stress of competitive within the sector of higher education and science. Polish Higher Education Institutions suffer on the one hand from a lack of attractiveness of their offered study programmes for foreign students and on the other hand from the risk of brain drain especially of well educated academics", so Brackmann.
