
On Wednesday 28th of March 2023, the Quality Assurance Directorate of Cihan University – Sulaymaniyah and the German Accreditation Agency ‘ZeVA’ jointly organized a webinar on ‘Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG)’. The webinar was arranged after a series of meetings and talks between both sides for the purpose of applying European standards for quality assurance in universities.
The meeting brought together a large number of quality assurance experts and academics from a wide range of universities and Higher Education institutions to discuss academic quality as well as academic accreditation in accordance with standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG). The possibility of implementing those Standards at Kurdish HEIs and the wider Middle East region was also explored.
The webinar highlighted the key goals of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG). And, the webinar also contributes to the common understanding of quality assurance for learning and teaching across borders and among all stakeholders. These Standards and Guidelines have played and will continue to play an important role in the development of national and institutional quality assurance systems across the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and cross-border cooperation.
Engagement with quality assurance processes, particularly the external ones, allows European higher education systems to demonstrate quality and increase transparency, thus helping to build mutual trust and better recognition of their qualifications, programs, and other providers.
The German Accreditation Agency ‘ZeVA’ is an accreditation body that works with higher education governance and management. Since 1995, ZEVA has been active in the field of quality assurance in higher education. In this context, it has successfully cooperated with higher education institutions in Germany, Europe, and beyond.
Concluding, the webinar highlighted the procedures and requirements that need to be implemented in order to enable the above institutions to obtain ZeVA accreditation.









