Types of accreditation and evaluation procedures
The main task of the Agency shall be to determine whether the higher education institutions comply with Criteria for the accreditation and external evaluation of higher education institutions and study programmes in addition to statutory provisions, or whether they achieve the quality standards determined with these provisions as well as other regulations by the Agency.
Types of accreditations:
– Initial accreditation of a higher education institution is granted for a period of five years or, if quality standards are not meet, the application is denied;
– Accreditation of a study programme is granted for an indefinite period or the application is denied;
– Re-accreditation of a higher education institutions is granted for a period of maximum five years (or less) or is not granted
– Accreditation of transformations of higher education institutions (transformation to another type, merger by acquisition, merger by the formation of a new entity or division of higher education institutions, changing the location in Slovenia) is granted or the application is denied.
The important tasks of the Agency is regular cooperation with stakeholders in higher education, consultation in the establishment of quality systems of higher education institutions and a continuous enhancement of quality in higher education. Therefore, it shall also regularly perform annual evaluations of a sample of study programmes.
A regular external evaluation of a higher education institution shall be a mandatory part of the re-accreditation procedure for a higher education institution. The external evaluation may also be performed as an extraordinary evaluation of a higher education institution or study programme anytime during the validity of the accreditation.
In summary, types of external evaluations are:
– Regular evaluation of a higher education institution
– Extraordinary evaluation of a higher education institution
– Extraordinary evaluation of a study programme
– Evaluation of a sample of study programmes