Quality Assuring VET and Level 5: supporting harmonious transitions

November 4, 2022 (Friday)
14:00 - 15:30 UTC+1/CET

INQAAHE Talks webinar series presentations aim to connect INQAAHE membership with the broader international higher education community to collectively reflect on shared challenges and best practice, providing insights with a view to ensuring that higher education and quality assurance continue to serve the best interest of our increasingly interconnected communities. 

This session will focus on issues surrounding technical and vocational programming that can fall outside or within traditional quality assurance bodies and frameworks for degree programming. Ensuring that there is credential and credit recognition for student academic progression and mobility is critical to support the higher education and labour market systems. Quality and recognition are the link in ensuring the connection between VET, HE, and the labour and supporting flexible learning.

Invited speakers from around the world will reflect on experiences in quality assuring VET and/or technical degree and professional programming. Speakers will unpack what makes QA of technical education different from QA of different levels, how QA of VET is different from HE, the importance of flexible pathways as a way to ensure lifelong learning and equality of opportunities, and some of the challenges and opportunities in the area.

We are absolutely delighted to have the insights and expertise from:

• Hans Daale and Erik Martijnse, who will present the work of Chain5, a European Community of Practice supporting Level 5 of the EQF,
• Kristin Vinje, Chief Executive of the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT),
• Leah Matthews, from the US’s Distance Education Accreditation Council (DEAC) who will share the experiences of supporting quality of distance VET and technical programming, and
• Karen Belfer, Executive Director of the Ontario College Quality Assurance Service (OCQAS).

The session will include formal presentations from panel members, followed by a moderated discussion and question and answer period with plenty of opportunities for participants to ask questions and inform discussion.

The recording of this session is available on INQAAHE's YouTube channel.

The following speakers joined us in this session:

Mr. Erik Martijnse

My present position is Director at the Dutch Inspectorate of Education, specialized in quality assurance at the system level of Dutch Universities and Polytechnics. As a member of the strategic board of Chain 5, one of my missions is to stimulate the development of level 5 education in an international context. For a number of years I have been in the board of the European University Institute in Florence. Lastly I am an expert on the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area.

Mr. Hans Daale

Hans Daale is general manager of LEIDO, a Dutch LLL-network for vocational and higher (professional) education. His last formal position was Dean of Faculty in Amsterdam. He is now working full-time for LEIDO. Hans is President of CHAIN5, community of practice for level 5. He is active in discussions about the position of a ‘European Level 5 Area’ and about starting a process for Higher Vocational-Professional Education (Higher VET) at EQF levels 5 and higher.

Kristin Vinje

Kristin Vinje (59) is Chief Executive Officer at NOKUT (the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education), which is an independent expert body under the Ministry of Education and Research. She has broad experience in leadership and management through previous positions in both public and private sector, including academia. She has a PhD in chemistry from University of Oslo. She holds several board positions, and is, among other things, chair of the board for The Norwegian Meteorological Institute. She has for 8 years served as a Norwegian politician, both as Vice Mayor for Finance in The City Government of Oslo and as Member of Parliament (MP), serving as Head of Faction in The Standing Committee on Education, Research and Church Affairs.

Leah Matthews, PhD

Leah Matthews serves as the Executive Director of the Distance Education Accrediting Commission located in Washington, DC. The DEAC is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1926 that accredits fully distance education institutions serving nearly 1.2 million students annually. The DEAC is recognized by the US Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Ms. Matthews holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Westminster College, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, a Master of Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma and a PhD in Education from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.

Karen Belfer, PhD

As Executive Director of the OCQAS, Karen oversees the self-regulatory mechanisms for the public colleges in Ontario and is responsible for the operation of the Credentials Validation Service and the College Quality Assurance Audit Process. Prior to joining the OCQAS, Karen spent seven years as the Dean of the Centre for Instructional Development and Applied Research at Vancouver Community College (VCC), a unit responsible for college wide instructional development, program review, curriculum development, educational technology and applied research implementation. At different points in time she was also responsible for the School of Instructor Education (five years), Centre for Business Studies (three years), and the School of Arts and Science - College Foundations and University Transfer (two years). Prior to VCC she worked as an Educational Consultant for BCIT, UBC and TechBC. As a consultant, she managed projects internationally and in various Canadian institutions. Her focus was the design, implementation and evaluation of new educational approaches and technologies to enhance the learning process. Karen did her undergraduate work in Informatics, her Masters in Adult Education, and Ph.D. in Educational Research at the Anahuac University in Mexico, where she taught for 10 years.

This session was chaired by:

Mary Catharine Lennon, PhD

Mary Catharine Lennon, PhD, is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board of Ontario (PEQAB) and Research Associate with the Centre for Canadian and International Higher Education (CIHE) at the University of Toronto (UofT). Dr. Lennon is also a Board Director of the International Network of Quality Assurance in Higher Education (INQAAHE) and chairs the Marjorie Lenn Peace Centre for Education and Capacity Building in Quality Assurance. Her academic and professional activities are in international and comparative higher education policy development and advice in areas including system design, accountability and quality assurance, and evaluation. Most recently, Dr. Lennon co-edited the book “Learning Outcomes, Academic Credit, and Student Mobility” and co-authored the North American chapter of “Global Trends in Higher Education Quality Assurance”. She holds degrees from Queen’s University, Simon Fraser University and the University of Toronto.