Higher education quality assurance in Central Europe – Beyond accreditation towards divergence

This article analyses higher education quality assurance (QA) policies in Central Europe since their inception in the 1990s. Covering Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, the analysis employs a comparative framework specific to higher education QA, drawing on relevant desk research. The results indicate ideational variations in the goals of higher education QA policies formulated by the designated national agencies, with the controlling function as a baseline. Contrary to popular expectations, Central European agencies commonly use a combination of diverse higher education QA tools, including some less common types such as accreditation of fields of study, complex accreditation, parallel reaccreditation and comprehensive evaluation. These resulting mixes prioritise regulation, though their effectiveness is limited by the problematic layering of individual instruments. Additionally, the politics of QA, which Central European agencies resist only partially, warrants further investigation.