Abstract:

The authors of this paper activated as members of two EU Programs.

The first one was a LLP ERASMUS program, SALEIE - "Strategic Alignment of Electrical and Information Engineering in European Higher Education Institutions". This project has been promoted and supported by the European Association for Education in Electrical and Information Engineering (EAEEIE). SALEIE's major aim has been targeted towards providing adequate tools for European universities and thus enables them to flexibly manage actual challenges raised by teaching Electrical and Information Engineering subjects (http://www.saleie.co.uk).

The second one was Practice-based Experiential Learning Analytics Research and Support (PELARS), a FP7 EU program proposing to contribute to introduce new educational technologies (http://www.pelars-project.eu).

The quality assessment process in Romania is being managed by The Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS), as part the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education – ENQA also enrolled within the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education - EQAR (http://www.aracis.ro/nc/en/aracis).

The authors of this paper are involved also in the activities of ARACIS.

The Romanian Education system was reorganized in the frame of the Bologna Process. The Romanian Engineering Education followed a particular way: four years of study for a bachelor diploma and two years for a master diploma. Debates are taking place regarding the results of this choice made more than ten years ago.

The paper focused on the comparison between the experiences acquired in the upper two EU programs and the reality of the Romanian quality assessment process as it was identified by a national survey realized in 2017 – this report was officially published and registered (ISBN) and will be used as a main source of information.

This survey involved both evaluators acting in the quality checking through ARACIS procedures and academics, professors and researchers, from Romanian universities being evaluated by ARACIS. Statistical data were produced and interpretation was provided using thousands of answers to specific questions.

The papers will include comparisons between the facts identified by the survey, taking into consideration only engineering programs and the achievements resulted after the participation to the EU programs above mentioned. A strengths, weaknesses opportunities and threats (SWOT) final analysis regarding the Romanian engineering education system will be provided.

Keywords:

Quality Assessment, Higher Engineering Education.