Report by the EHEA working group on Qualifications Frameworks 2009-2012

The present report is submitted to the BFUG by the EHEA Working Group on Qualifications Frameworks. It also draws on the activities of the Network of National Correspondents for Qualifications Frameworks, as well as on the excellent cooperation established with the European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF).

Mandate and Context

In the 2007 London Communiqué, the Council of Europe was asked to support the sharing of experience in the elaboration of national qualifications frameworks. This request was renewed in the 2009 Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve Communiqué. The Council of Europe has been assisted in this work by the Bologna Working Group on Qualifications Frameworks, which was appointed in accordance with the decision by the Bologna Follow Up Group (BFUG), as well as the Network of National QF Correspondents. The latter was established provisionally and received permanent terms of reference from the BFUG in March 2011.

The EHEA Qualifications Framework – QF-EHEA for short – was adopted by Ministers in Bergen in 2005 on the basis of a report by the Bologna Working Group on Qualifications Frameworks. The development of national qualifications frameworks is within the competence and responsibility of the competent national authorities. Ministers committed to launching this work by 2007 and to completing it by 2010. Furthermore, the 2007 report by the Bologna Working Group on qualifications frameworks is an important element on which the current Working Group has drawn in its work.

• QF-EHEA The framework of qualifications for the European Higher Education Area - May 2005
• Report A Framework for Qualifications of the European Higher Education Area 2005

The role of the Council of Europe and, by extension, the Working Group and the Network of national correspondents, has therefore been to facilitate the sharing of experience and to help develop good practice so that the competent national authorities could benefit from relevant experience from other countries to the extent that the national authorities wished to do so. The Council of Europe, the Working Group and the Network have seen their role as that of facilitators, not least in deepening the European reflection on qualifications frameworks. An important part of this mandate is the role the Council of Europe and by extension the Working Group and the Network are playing in supporting exchanges of views, sharing experience and discussing common challenges as well as in building trust between countries and framework owners. In this context, the excellent cooperation established with the European Commission in view of coordinating the development of national frameworks under the QF-EHEA with that under the European Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning (EQF) should be emphasized. One very practical example is that the Network of national QF-EHEA correspondents now meets yearly with the national Coordination Points (NCPs) of the EQF.

• EQF-LLL The European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning - 2008

Terms of references

Purpose and/or outcome

Continued coordination at the level of the EHEA and with the EQF-LLL to facilitate the implementation of the national qualifications frameworks and their self-certification against the overarching Qualifications Framework for the EHEA by 2012.

Reference to the Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve Communiqué

paragraph 12

Specific tasks

1. Consider and make recommendations on specific policy issues related to qualifications frameworks;
2. maintain and develop relations to the EQF-LLL, including contributing to the EQF Advisory Group;
3. organize, or stimulate the organization of, Bologna conferences and events on issues related to qualifications frameworks;
4. coordinate requests for assistance, including as regards self certification of national frameworks against the overarching framework of qualifications of the EHEA;
5. maintain and develop the Bologna QF web site (with input from the national correspondents);
6. assist in the preparation of meetings of national QF correspondents.

Liaison with other action lines

Recognition (via the chair of the WG who is also a member of the QF WG) International openness
Reporting on the implementation of the Bologna Process