The State Council of Quality (SCQ) of the Kosovo Accreditation Agency (KAA), in its 116^th meeting held on September 25, 2023, has approved the standards for accreditation/reaccreditation of higher education institutions at the institutional level and for bachelor and master programs.

According to the KAA Law, these standards will come into effect after one year and will be applicable for all new applications submitted for accreditation/reaccreditation during the year 2024. For applications submitted to KAA from October 1 to October 31, 2023, the new standards will not be applicable, and the evaluation process will be conducted using the existing standards.

KAA is dedicated to advancing standards for quality assurance in higher education, in line with European Standards and Guidelines for Quality in Higher Education (ESG), as well as the role of the state and society in the development of higher education in the Republic of Kosovo.

KAA has ensured that the drafting of these standards includes local and international members of SCQ, local and international experts in higher education, higher education institutions, representatives of civil society, student representatives, representatives of the Ministry of Education, donors in the field of education, and all other relevant stakeholders in higher education.

After the development of the final draft by the working group for revision of these standards, KAA published the document for public discussion.

Following the conclusion of the public discussion period, KAA addressed the received comments, and the same were presented for consideration to the State Council of Quality. In the 116^th meeting, after reviewing the comments submitted by interested parties, SCQ approved the final document.

The revision of accreditation standards was supported by Heras Plus project and funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA).

In the 116^th meeting, SCQ also reviewed and made decisions regarding the monitoring reports of HEIs.

Based on the new KAA Law, the meeting also established a Working Group for the preparation of secondary legislation, which falls under the competence of KAA.

SCQ also reviewed a number of applications to be included in the list of international accreditation experts.

In this meeting, SCQ also made decisions regarding two requests and one appeal.

Download: Standards for Bachelor and Master Programmes

Download:  Standards for HEIs FIN