Aukštojo mokslo akreditavimo atsiradimo sąlygos: europinis kontekstas ir Lietuvos situacija
Conditions for Introduction of Higher Education Accreditation: European Context and Lithuania’s Case

Summary/Abstract: Over the last decade the issues concerning higher education quality and its assurance have become very important in European countries therefore the aim of this article is to carry out a comparative analysis of conditions that determined introduction of accreditation process in Western and Central / Eastern European countries and to discuss Lithuania’s case. Methods: literature analysis, document analysis, causative – comparative analysis. First of all the experience of European countries in the field of introduction of higher education accreditation is analysed. In the second part the influence of Bologna process on the expansion of accreditation process is presented. In the second part Lithuania’s case is discussed. The conclusions are presented in the end of the article. Having analysed the experience of European countries in the field of higher education quality assurance, it can be stated that Western and Central / Eastern European countries chose different ways and time for introduction of accreditation process because of different political, social, and cultural situations. The demand for accreditation procedures gained extreme importance in Europe after the acceptance of The Bologna declaration. Nevertheless quality assurance was not the strong point of Bologna declaration, further documents of this process and its initiated reforms filled in the gap paying enormous attention to the aspects of quality and naming accreditation as one of the possible ways to assure quality Lithuania adopted accreditation together with most Central / Eastern European countries during the first generation of implementation of accreditation mechanisms. The analysis of higher education quality assessment and accreditation system in Lithuania shows that considerable progress was achieved in this field: higher education quality assurance has become one of the Lithuania’s priorities, legal basis of this process is permanently developed and improved, international experts are invited more often. However several problems still attract attention of international experts and national scientists: the lack of transparency in universities’ accountability and accreditation processes, irrational period of study programme accreditation, problematic process of experts’ selection, controversial scheme of quality assessment.

• Details
• Contents