Abstract:

The education quality assurance system at universities is the object of permanent interest both in the field of applying legal solutions at the European level as well as national and institutional levels. Achieving the highest level of education quality is an important goal not only of the institution but also of the stakeholders (employers, professional organizations etc.) and mainly the students, who are more and more aware of their future benefits of high quality education. For many years, students were included in the quality system of higher education passively as customers in the education process. Awareness of the role of the beneficiary and creation of appropriate legal regulations at the national and institutional levels resulted in a significant increase in student activity by undertaking initiatives for improving the quality of education.

The paper presents selected case-studies and examples of good practices identified in the field of student initiatives leading to improvement of the education quality. The problems of students' activation were also discussed. The data were collected at two representative technical universities: Bialystok University of Technology and Lodz University of Technology, based on the analysis of various forms of student activity. The examples were selected from the broad range of ventures engaging students into the improvement of education quality system e.g.:
- students' participation in the process of determining the concept of education in a given field of study, including its goals and outcomes,
- involvement of students in the decision-making structure in the area of quality management (e.g. student surveys as an element of the interim evaluation of academic teacher, the university council of education and students affairs giving the opinions about the curriculum of study, study process regulations, amount of the tuition fees, etc.),
- participation in the HEI law-making process (student members of the university Senate),
- projects of the Student Government (the action for increasing the students’ involvement in the education survey process, the Week of Education Quality, Elements of Law in Higher Education course etc.).

More and more effective student involvement in an active participation in various boards can be observed, e.g. by including students in the internal division of tasks, competences and responsibilities for certain processes. Students activities in national and international accreditation institutions play an important role in the process of assessing the study and HEIs in Poland. Students also join in the internationalization process by taking part in the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), and engage in integration aspects of international students stay.

The aspects of improving the quality of education by means of student scientific clubs activities (participation in international competitions, creating new laboratory stands, influencing the lecture scope etc.) are also taken into consideration.

The university institutional ventures and students organizations projects, when properly guided and supervised, may lead to significant short and long term results in the field of the higher education quality improvement. In addition, these initiatives build a sense of co-responsibility of students and HEI for the effects of joint actions. However, the role of the university is to maintain permanent student involvement in the management of the education quality.

Keywords:

quality of education, student initiatives, education standards