Ministry on the validity of diplomas obtained in Serbia

BELGRADE -- Validity of university degrees in Serbia is beyond question, not depending on membership in the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education

Ministry on the validity of diplomas obtained in Serbia

BELGRADE -- Validity of university degrees in Serbia is beyond question, not depending on membership in the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education

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This was announced by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development.

According to them, in 2012, the former CAQA (The Commission for Accreditation and Quality Assurance) was elected a full member of ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education), and in 2017 it was placed under "monitoring" status to correct the perceived deficiencies in the implementation of European standards.

The National Accreditation Body (NAT), as the legal successor to the former CAQA, inherited this status.

The rules and standards have been changed to remove objections that put the former CAQA into supervised member status.

Independent five-member review boards have been set up, consisting of three professors, a practitioner and a student. In this way, the key role in the accreditation of higher education institutions and study programs is given to the review committees.

NAT Director Jelena Kocovic says that when making a decision, the Accreditation Commission should not change the opinion of the review committee unless it is a violation of the law. According to her, there have been no such cases so far.

NAT has eliminated any perceived shortcomings in order to retain full membership of ENQA, in order to fully integrate the higher education system in Serbia with the system in the European area, respecting the standards prescribed by ENQA.

"In October 2019, NAT had an external audit by a four-member committee of ENQA auditors, and we are convinced that NAT has performed well so far. Much has been done in the past year and a half to develop a new methodology for accreditation and external quality assurance. Apart from designing a new methodology, along with putting it into practice, ENQA had requested to document at least five higher education institutions or study programs according to that methodology, prior to their arrival in external NAT review, to document that, Professor Kocovic pointed out.

In order to present the implementation of the new accreditation system according to the new methodology, the ENQA audit team conducted the accreditation process of study programs of Singidunum University, Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade, Faculty of Organizational Sciences in Belgrade, Faculty of Mathematics in Belgrade and Faculty of Engineering science in Kragujevac.

"Singidunum University first applied for accreditation of its study programs in March 2019, two of which were accredited in June. The other faculties applied for accreditation of study programs at the end of June, and these study programs were accredited in early October 2019. Considering that the mentioned institutions submitted documentation duly and seriously prepared, most of the study programs of all these institutions were accredited within approximately three months", Kocovic pointed out and emphasized that the ENQA review team did not have any objections to the accreditations conducted.