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PROPOSED LAW NO. 126 /X

Exhibition of Motives

The Programme of the XVII Constitutional Government has identified, as objectives for the

higher education policy, from among others, the improvement of the quality and relevance of the

formations offered, the development of a culture of accountability and the

structuring of an internationally recognized quality assurance system,

providing for the organisation of this last objective around four axes, which are:

( i ) the broadening of the evaluation to the performance of the institutions; ( ii ) the objectivation of the

evaluation criteria, the translation of the results into qualitative appreciations, dimension a

dimension, comparable to each other and the clarification of the consequences of assessment, wants

for the operation of the courses and educational establishments, or for their

funding; ( iii ) the internationalization of the evaluation process, specifically in the

institutional evaluation dimension; and (iv) the requirement for delivery, by

universities and polytechnic institutes, of own quality assurance systems,

passable certification.

Giving sequence to its programmatic lines of enlargement of the evaluation, de

objectivation of the respective criteria, of internationalization of the respective process and

of clarification of the respective consequences, the Portuguese Government has given, since soon,

priority to compliance with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the

European Higher Education Area , constants of the report of February 2005,

prepared by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education

(ENQA) at the request of the signatory ministers of the Bologna Declaration, at the time of its

meeting, in Berlin, on September 19, 2003. And it was also in that context that the

Government requested, in 2005, the same European organisation, the presence in

Portugal from a panel of experts proceeding to the assessment of warranty practices

of the quality of higher education carried out within the framework of the National Council of

Evaluation of Higher Education and to issue recommendations to the Government on the

organization, method and processes of a new accreditation system, as,

specifically, with the aforementioned document of 2005.

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Plastering that assessment and those recommendations, it emerged, as early as 2006, the report of the

ENQA on ensuring the quality of higher education in Portugal, whose guidelines the

Government proposes to comply, justly as means of realization of the above lines

cied from your Program.

The central findings of the said reports radically in the character of the

unconditionally mandatory from the evaluation. Those findings also point out

for the need for a system in which, based on the findings of the self-assessment

of institutions of higher education, whose irreplaceable character and importance are

recognized, the external evaluation of the same institutions is going to be in charge of

entities that are external to it and not of entities of them representative

in whose activity they were confused, in terms of the nexus of representation, evaluators

external and evaluated.

There is in view, concretely, an evaluation that has the object of the quality of the

performance of higher education institutions as a function of compliance with their

mission and that, in the framework of the evolution towards a system of education based on the

development of competences, take into consideration the suitability of teaching

delivered in each cycle of studies to the skills the acquisition of which they must ensure.

On the other hand, in the said conclusions accentuated the importance of the

multidimensionality of the assessment of higher education, in which they understand each other since

the programmes and cycles of study, up to the generic scientific activity, passing through the

quality of the lecturers and the vary equipment order available to the students.

It also underlies the ENQA guidelines, in regard to the evaluation, the valorisation of its

implications, while image of higher education institutions, in the plan of their

external projection and of the very important effects of such projection, as, in the field of

community, the success of students in the labour market and or that of cooperation

inter-institutional and, in the international field, that of international cooperation. Hence the

importance given, in such a context, to the publicity of the results of the evaluation.

By means of the present legislative initiative, the Government intends to trigger, justly,

the creation of a system for assessing the quality of higher education marked by the

universality, compulsory and periodicity and by a requirement for adoption of

quality policies within the institutions of higher education themselves, by the

multidimensionality of the corresponding object, by the subjection of its criteria to the

patterns firmed up in the development of the Bologna Process, by the importance

supplementary to the evaluation of scientific research activities and

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development, by the adversarial in the evaluation processes and the resortability

of the decisions in them taken, by the participation of foreign experts in the process of

evaluation, by various forms of intervention of the students in their breast, by the publicity

and by an orientation towards the purposes of the deployment of educational institutions

superior in the international landscape, in the life of the community and in the labour market.

From the point of view of the forms of evaluation, ENQA advocates in the documents that the

Government has in line of account in this initiative: ( i ) the creation of a system of auto-

-evaluation of the credible and effective higher education institutions, characterized by the

periodicity, by the intervention of students, by the incidence of both the programmes

how about the cycles of studies and by the publicity of their findings; ( ii ) the design

of a system of hetero-evaluation characterized by functional independence and

material from the competent entity for its triggering face to the entities

evaluated, as well as by similar requirements of periodicity, effectiveness,

participation, publicity and dual incidence on institutions and cycles of studies.

In the present legislative initiative, full compliance is given to these two guidelines.

With respect to the first, related to self-assessment, a system is conceded

framed by rules whose approval competes, either to the statutory bodies of teaching

superior, either to the agency responsible for accreditation and the evaluation of institutions and

cycles of study, to be created already in the wake of the schedule, or in the Programme of

Restructuring of the Central State Administration [sub-paragraph vi) of the paragraph f) and point

g) of paragraph 24 of the Resolution of the Council of Ministers No. 39/2006 of April 21], either

in the Organic Law of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (n. 3 of the article

26. of the Decree-Law No. 214/2006 of October 27), either in Article 53 of the Decree-Law

n. 74/2006, of March 24.

With respect to external evaluation, a system is conceded in which this is from the

responsibility of the agency to which above has alluded, being materially in charge of

panels of experts by it chosen, in a logic of complete independence in the face of the

assessed entities, as well as subject to standards whose approval is also up to the

agency. This external evaluation is mandatory and the refusal, by a

establishment of higher education or its organic unit, from subjection to the respective

process determines the cancellation of the accreditation of your study cycles and, in the case

of the private or cooperative higher education institutions, the cancellation of the

authorization of the recognition of the public interest.

An initiative such as the present, with general and special standards on evaluation, insert-

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if-á, if it is passed as law, in the general context of the quality assurance system

of higher education, at the national level, of which it will be part on par with the Decree-Law No. 74/2006,

of March 24, in respect of accreditation, and of the statutory scheme of the agency

responsible for accreditation and the evaluation of higher education.

The hearing of the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities was triggered,

Council Coordinator of the Higher Polytechnic Institutes and Portuguese Association

of the Private Higher Education, as well as the students ' associations of the teaching

top.

Thus:

Under the terms of the paragraph d) of Article 197 (1) of the Constitution, the Government presents to the

Assembly of the Republic the following proposal for a law:

CHAPTER I

Object and scope

Article 1.

Subject

This Law approves the legal regime for the assessment of the quality of higher education.

Article 2.

Scope

The provisions of this Law shall apply to all higher education institutions and to

all your cycles of studies, degrees and diplomas.

CHAPTER II

General principles

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Article 3.

Object of the assessment

1-A The assessment is for the purpose of the quality of the performance of the establishments of

higher education, measuring the degree of fulfillment of its mission through

performance parameters related to the respective performance and with the

results of it arising.

2-A evaluation has in particular regard, in the definition and application of the parameters

of performance, the difference in goals between university education and teaching

polytechnic.

3-A The assessment has for referential the international good practices in the matter.

Article 4.

Parameters of quality assessment

1-Are, specifically, quality assessment parameters related to the

performance of higher education institutions:

a) The teaching imparted, specifically its scientific level, its

teaching and learning methodologies and the evaluation processes of the

students;

b) The qualification of the faculty and its suitability for the mission of the institution;

c) The strategy adopted to ensure the quality of teaching and the way in which

same is realized;

d) The scientific and technological activity duly assessed and recognized, to a

level appropriate to the mission of the institution;

e) The international cooperation;

f) The interdisciplinary, interdepartmental and inter-institutional collaboration;

g) The efficiency of organisation and management;

h) The facilities and the pedagogical and scientific equipment;

i) The mechanisms of social action.

2-Are, specifically, quality assessment parameters related to the

results arising from the performance of higher education institutions:

a) The suitability of teaching imparted in each cycle of studies to competences

whose acquisition those must secure;

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b) The realization of cycles of study in conjunction with other institutions,

national or foreign;

c) The demand on the part of the students;

d) The openness to new audiences and the ability to promote their integration with

success;

e) The school success;

f) The insertion of graduates into the labour market;

g) Scientific and technological production at a level appropriate to the mission of the

institution;

h) The contact of students with research activities from the first

years;

i) The economic enhancement of research and research activities

technological development at a level appropriate to the mission of the institution;

j) The integration into international projects and partnerships;

l) The provision of services to the community;

m) The contribution to regional and national development to an appropriate level

to the mission of the institution;

n) Cultural action and, specifically, the contribution to the promotion of culture

scientific;

o) The catchment of own revenue through the developed activity;

p) The information on the institution and on the teaching in it.

Article 5.

Objectives of quality assessment

They are objectives of the assessment of quality:

a) The improvement of the quality of higher education institutions;

b) The grounded information of the society on the performance of institutions

of higher education;

c) The development of an internal institutional culture of guarantee of

quality.

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Article 6.

Assessment of quality and accreditation

The accreditation of higher education institutions, their cycles of study, degrees and

diplomas, in the framework of the system of quality assurance of higher education is carried out

based on the evaluation of the quality.

Article 7.

Principles of quality assessment

The assessment of the quality of higher education institutions obeys the

following principles:

a) Compulsion and periodicity;

b) Intervention by lecturers, students and external entities;

c) Existence of an external evaluation system characterized by the

organic-functional independence of the evaluator vis-à-vis the assessed entity;

d) Internationalization;

e) Participation of the entities assessed in the external evaluation processes,

including the adversarial;

f) Resortability of decisions.

Article 8.

Compulsion

Quality assessment is mandatory, and it is carried out in the framework of the European system of

quality assurance in higher education.

Article 9.

Incidence

1-A The quality assessment focuses on:

a) The higher education institutions and their organic units;

b) The cycles of studies.

2-A The quality assessment may focus transversally on relevant parameters

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of the performance of sets of higher education institutions or of cycles of

studies.

Article 10.

Forms

The assessment of quality takes the forms of:

a) Self-evaluation;

b) External evaluation.

Article 11.

Agents of the evaluation

1-A self-assessment is carried out by each higher education establishment.

2-A external evaluation that serves as a basis for accreditation processes is carried out by the

Agency for Evaluation and Accreditation for the Guarantee of the Quality of Teaching

Superior, hereinafter referred to as Agency.

Article 12.

Participation of students

The quality assessment system ensures the participation of the students through:

a) From their integration in the processes of self-assessment, specifically through the

compulsory involvement of the pedagogical boards;

b) From your hearing in the external evaluation processes;

c) From the appointment of representatives of its associations on organ of the Agency.

Article 13.

Participation of external entities

The quality assessment system necessarily includes the contribution of entities

external relevant to the process, specifically of the orders and other associations

public professionals, as well as from other scientific, cultural and

economic.

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Article 14.

Internationalization

1-A External assessment compulsorily integrates the participation of experts from

foreign or international institutions in the panels for it competent, in

significant number.

2-A The Agency may promote the evaluation of educational establishments and cycles of

studies in conjunction with foreign institutions endowed with similar assignments,

specifically with the aim of promoting the comparison of the levels of

performance at the international scale of institutions or congenic courses.

Article 15.

Results of the external evaluation

1-The results of the external evaluation shall:

a) Contain recommendations expressed about the decision to be made as to the

accreditation or reaccreditation of the subject matter of the evaluation;

b) Express yourself by means of a assigned qualitative classification, either every

one of the parameters considered in the evaluation, either in relation to the evaluation

global, on a scale that allows you to order and compare the object of the assessment.

2-The results of the external evaluation:

a) They necessarily substantiate the decisions on the accreditation of the

higher education institutions and their cycles of study;

b) Informs, compulsorily, the processes of contractuation between the State and

the higher education institutions that target the financing of these.

Article 16.

Advertising

1-The results of the evaluation are public.

2-Higher education institutions must ensure special publicity to the

documents produced in the framework of the self-assessment process, or in their

interior, whether for the exterior.

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3-External evaluation reports are publicly released.

CHAPTER III

Forms of evaluation

Article 17.

Internal guarantee of quality

1-Higher education institutions shall:

a) Adopt, depending on the respective mission, a policy of ensuring the

quality of your study cycles, as well as the appropriate procedures at

your pursuit;

b) Engage, through concrete measures, in the development of a

culture of quality and quality assurance in its activity;

c) To develop and implement a strategy for the continuous improvement of the

quality.

2-A The strategy, the policy and the procedures referred to in the preceding paragraph shall:

a) Be approved formally by the legal and statutorily competent body

of the establishment of higher education and publicly disclosed;

b) To ensure the participation of students and others interested in the process.

Article 18.

Self-assessment

In the framework of the respective self-assessment, higher education institutions must:

a) Define formal procedures for the approval, monitoring and evaluation

periodical of their study cycles, which they integrate, obligatorily:

i) The participation of the pedagogical councils, and the appreciation of the students;

ii) The participation of the research centres;

iii ) The participation of advisory entities with external participation;

b) Adopt the appropriate procedures to ensure that the staff

lecturer possesses the qualification and competence required for the performance of the

their duties, which should be made available to those responsible for the

external evaluation processes and be the subject of assessment in the reports of

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evaluation;

c) Making sure that the available didactic resources are appropriate and

appropriate for each of the cycles of study they provide;

d) Making sure that they collect, analyse and use the relevant information for the

effective management of your cycles of study and other activities;

e) To publish, on a regular basis, quantitative and qualitative information, updated,

impartial and objective about:

i) Of the cycles of study they provide and degrees and diplomas confers;

ii) From monitoring the path of its graduates for a period

reasonable of time, in the perspective of employability.

Article 19.

Principles of external evaluation

1-Quality external assessment procedures must take into account the effectiveness

of the quality internal assurance procedures set out in the previous article.

2-The purposes and objectives of the external evaluation processes shall be set and

made public prior to their implementation and application, upon description of the

procedures to be adopted.

3-The formal decisions taken as a result of the external evaluation of the quality

shall be based on objective criteria, disclosed public and in advance,

and applied in a systematic and consistent manner.

4-The external evaluation processes of the quality shall be designed in a manner

they show themselves suitable for the purposes and objectives previously set.

5-The external evaluation processes of the quality are carried out through panels of

assessment integrated by independent experts, with no relation to the establishment

of assessed higher education, and include visits to the educational establishment and the

hearing of the representatives of their bodies, as well as external entities,

particularly professional and other associations.

6-External evaluation processes shall include mandatorily public hearings,

open to all interested and publicised in such a way that they guarantee an appropriate

disclosure.

7-The external evaluation processes of the quality are subject to adversarial.

8-Quality external assessment processes containing recommendations

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for the practice of a concrete action, or that require an action plan

subsequent, obligate to the definition of a follow-up process beforehand

determined and to achieve it consistently.

9-A external evaluation of the quality of higher education institutions and the

your cycles of studies, degrees and diplomas must be carried out periodically.

10-A The duration of the evaluation cycle and the procedures to be used must be defined

in a clear and publicized manner and in advance.

Article 20.

Refusal of subjection to external evaluation

The refusal, on the part of an establishment of higher education or its organic unit,

of subjecting the external evaluation, determines:

a) The cancellation of the accreditation of your study cycles;

b) The cancellation of the recognition of public interest, should it be a

establishment of teaching subject to the Statute of the Private Higher Education and

Cooperative.

Article 21.

External evaluation reports

1-The results of the external evaluation are presented in the form of a report

drawn up by the respective evaluation panel and approved by the competent body of the

Agency.

2-With external evaluation reports is always mandatory and jointly

published the response of the establishment of higher education drawn up under the

process of adversarial.

Article 22.

Comparison

External evaluation can lead to the comparison between educational establishments

superior, organic units, cycles of studies, degrees and diplomas and their hierarchization

relative (" rankings ") as a function of parameters to be fixed by the Agency.

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Article 23.

Recurrability

The decisions made by the Agency in the framework of the quality assessment processes

are liable to appeal to the respective competent body.

Article 24.

Synthesis reports

The Agency shall periodically draw up summary reports that describe and

look at the general findings resulting from their activity.

CHAPTER IV

Final and transitional standards

Article 25.

Other areas of incidence of assessment

Periodically, the Government promotes the international assessment:

a) From the quality assessment system of higher education to which it relates to

present law and the Agency;

b) From the higher education system.

Article 26.

Abrogation standard

It is repealed Law No. 38/94 of November 21, amended by Law No. 1/2003, of 6 of

January.

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Article 27.

Entry into force

This Law shall come into force on the day following that of its publication.

Seen and approved in Council of Ministers of March 22, 2007

The Prime Minister

The Minister of the Presidency

The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs