under public accusations of lack of efficiency and irrelevance, being replaced
with “independent” accrediting agencies complying with the European standards
and guidelines.
In Europe, the Ministers of Education assembled in Bergen in 2005 gave
their blessing to the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the
European Higher Education Area (ESG), drafted by the ENQA (2005), in cooperation
and consultation with its member agencies and the other members of
the “E4 Group”. In 2007, the European Ministers of Education assembled in
London established the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher
Education (EQAR) based on a proposal drafted by the E4 (ENQA 2007). The
Register will not accept quality agencies based on associations of universities
arguing against their lack of independence, which would obviously exclude all
the US Regional Accrediting Agencies.
The decisions of the 2009 Bologna meeting of European HE Ministers at
Leuven, can have considerable consequences for the European Area of Higher
Education (EAHE) and its institutions. The implementation of the Bologna
process in European higher education systems has been a very important tool for
change used in Europe. European Ministers of Education meet every two years to
analyse the implementation progress and to determine future action. Quite
recently (28 and 29 April 2009) European ministers of education had another
conference held in Belgium. We can read in the final communiqué of the
Ministers this statement: