Monthly Archives: August 2018

AQAS is happy to announce a strategic partnership with the newly founded accreditation agency AAC in Curaçao. Dr. Aignald Panneflek, the president of the Academic Board of AAC, and the CEO of AQAS, Doris Herrmann, signed a memorandum of understanding in Willemstad. Both agencies agreed to offer joint accreditation procedures in South and Middle America in the future. Such a combined process will offer institutions the opportunity to acquire a double accreditation on the basis of a single procedure. All the respective frameworks and standards intended to safeguard the quality of the accreditation process will of course be fully considered in a joint process. Universities could therefore safe effort and costs incurred by two separate accreditation procedures.

AQAS has published a Reflection on how to apply the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in countries outside the European Higher Education Area. You can find all the publications of AQAS here.

Only happy faces were seen when Professor Eberhard Menzel, the president of the board of AQAS, handed over the certificates for the accreditation of two programmes offered by the University of Ghana.

The Master programme “Seed Science and Technology” and the PhD programme “Plant Breeding” have been founded in cooperation with the World Bank and are part of the Africa Higher Education Centres of Excellence Project (ACE). The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) started the programmes in 2008 and 2015, respectively and decided to approach AQAS with the request to carry out an accreditation procedure which is based on the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG). AQAS invited a panel of experts consisting of specialists from Germany, Ghana and Spain to assess the programmes on the basis of the internationally recognized criteria.

The panel came to the conclusion for the Master programme that “[t]hrough the excellent combination of seed technology and seed business and management issues, the programme covers a well-chosen area that is scientifically up to date and has a high relevance and attractiveness for the labour market in West Africa, and by extension to the entire African continent”. Furthermore, the experts were impressed by the “outstanding” success of the PhD programme.

The director of WACCI, Professor Eric Danquah, emphasized that the aim of this accreditation procedure was not to gain a certificate of international recognition but to improve the quality of the education for the benefit of the young generation in Ghana. WACCI is striving to be the best centre for crop improvement in Africa and an accreditation is an important step to support this goal.

Professor Menzel pointed out that […]

AQAS e.V. welcomes its first international member institution, Istanbul Gelişim University (IGU). The Chairman of the Board of Trustees of IGU, Abdulkadir Gayretli, and AQAS Chairman Prof. Dr. Eberhard Menzel signed a membership agreement as part of a visit by IGU representatives to AQAS in Cologne. Against the background of an increasing demand for international accreditation outside Germany, AQAS’ member institutions decided several years ago on offering international clients the chance of joining AQAS as a member. IGU is non-profit higher education institution in Turkey running Bachelor- and Master programmes in a vast area of subjects, such as economics, administrative and social sciences, fine arts as well as engineering and architecture. In 2017, AQAS accredited several programmes of IGU on the basis of the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG) in which the experts welcomed the approach of IGU to align its programmes with international standards. On signing the agreement, Prof. Menzel gave the following statement: “I am pleased that the wish of IGU for a deeper and long-lasting cooperation has been fulfilled by their membership with AQAS”.

Prof. Dr. Eberhard Menzel, Chairman of AQAS, and Abdulkadir Gayretli, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Istanbul Gelişim University

AQAS staff meets with representatives of Istanbul Gelişim University