Abstract:

Setting up a quality assurance system (QAS) for an international organization delivering training to European professionals is not a simple task, particularly as the training includes higher vocational education and training (Higher VET or HiVET) levels, where the border line between vocational education and training (VET) and higher education (HE) get blurred, and where an increased permeability of the education policies between VET and European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is extremely significant in ensuring a meaningful quality assurance (QA) of professional learning and qualifications in practice.

The challenge to set up a QAS for a non-typical training provider is primarily due to the fact that QA usually falls under the remit of national agencies that oversee and validate the national qualifications within a given country, be that HE or VET, whilst in this case, there is a European Union (EU) Agency delivering European training to border and coast guard officers from all EU member states, who must work together in joint operations at EU external borders, to ensure safety and security of EU citizens, and contribute to managing the irregular migration, respecting the fundamental rights of all persons and the international protection legislation.

In the case of a national training provider, there are specific regulatory frameworks in place, often set within the law, that translate and operationalize the education policies, adapting them to the more specific context applicable to national training providers. In the case of an EU agency whose main purpose is not training, but where training is important for achieving organizational strategic goals that focus on operational effectiveness in migration management, we are left with a major gap between the education policies and the level of a training practitioner. The later must extract the QA principles from the education policies and translate them into training practice in the form of regulations and procedures that best fit the organization and ensure the ultimate goal is met – that training can deliver the operational competence effectively, in a way that is transparent, accountable, reliable and meets the highest professional standards. In the absence of a European entity to play the intermediate role in providing a regulatory framework, bridging the gap between the high level policies and the operational training practice, the task of setting up a QAS that fits both the organizational context of an EU Agency, and the European standards for QA is an ambitious project.

Navigating between the clear provisions of the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ESG 2015) that set overarching QA standards applicable to any training institution and the provisions of the European Quality Assurance in VET framework (EQAVET) that set very detailed checklists for QA of VET providers based on a Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, may bring an answer to this challenge.

This paper outlines the key considerations underpinning the development of a QAS for border and coast guard vocational training delivered by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, and reflects on the lessons learnt from setting up such system, in the context of existing European policies and standards for QA in VET and HE, in the case of a non-typical training provider that operates at European level and is representative of pan-European training provision by any organization.

Keywords:

Quality assurance, Frontex, vocational education and training (VET), border and coast guard training, EQAVET, ESG2015, HiVET.