Mutual Recognition of Quality Assurance Decisions on Higher Education Institutions in Three Regions-A Lesson for Asia.

Abstract

Cross-border higher education resulting in the increased mobility of students, academic staff, programs, institutions and professionals has grown considerably in global times. Therefore, how to ensure that the quality of academic programs has met the local and international standards simultaneously has become a great challenge in many nations. In recent years, the need for close cooperation of quality assurance agencies and acceptance of review decisions called "Mutual recognition" has been promoted by several international quality assurance networks of higher education, Established in 2003, the European Consortium for Accreditation in higher education (ECA), which aims to achieve mutual recognition of accreditation decisions among member countries, is the first such initiative in the world. The main purpose of the paper is to understand the definition of mutual recognition, examine the role of the international quality assurance network in the promotion of mutual recognition and analzye the ECA, ARCU-SUR, and Asia—Pacific Quality Network cases. The implication of mutual recognition for higher education quality assurance of Asian nations and related issues derived from other regions will be discussed in the conclusion.