Development of a Network of Higher Education Quality Assurance Agencies as a Component of State Educational Policy in EHEA Countries

This article explores the formation of the higher education quality assurance agencies’ network formation and agencies’ role in the development of the state educational policy of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) countries. The key requirements, main functions, objectives, as well as the public purpose of quality assurance agencies, are also considered. The article demonstrates the evolution of the first European quality assurance agencies and the formation of their modern network.Based on the analysis of the results of the conferences of European Ministers of Education, the issue of the formation of a higher education quality assurance policy was pointed out as one of the priorities for member states from the beginning of the creation of the EHEA. The obligations imposed on the European Students’ Union, the European University Association, the European Association for the Applied Sciences in Higher Education, and the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, which form the E4 Group, demonstrate the importance of involving all key stakeholders in the process of forming state education policies. In particular, the article demonstrates the formation and development of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education as a political figure and one of the authors of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area.The article also covers the establishment of the Ukrainian quality assurance system, which is the most recently formed among the EHEA countries. The grounds for the creation of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance as a leading institution for the development of state quality assurance policies and as Ukraine’s European Union integration component, as well as an integral part of the European quality assurance network, are considered in the article. In particular, the article identifies a number of successful examples of the implementation of higher education quality assurance policy in Ukraine in the context of a pandemic and martial law, and demonstrates the current level of recognition of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance and the Ukrainian quality assurance system as a whole at the international level.