Helping the European Union Agency for Asylum to develop its training programmes
In August 2021, the consortium led by France Éducation international and comprising Algebra University College (AUC - Croatia) and the Academic Information Center (AIC - Latvia) won the European Union Agency for Asylum’s (EUAA) tender to support the institutional development of its training programmes and their harmonisation with the European standards in higher education.
A training offer to harmonise and improve the quality of practices at European scale
The European Agency EUAA plays a key role in implementing the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). It aims to strengthen cooperation with and between Member states and to support the practical application of the CEAS’s core values in the national policies and activities for asylum seekers.
To meet this objective, the EUAA’s mandate includes designing and organising high quality training programmes for the officials responsible for asylum in each Member state. The training programmes aim to harmonise and improve the quality of practices at European level.
As part of its development strategy, the EUAA seeks to improve the quality of its training programmes and consolidate its legitimacy based on the European standards to guarantee quality higher education. The tender won by FEI is part of this objective. It aims to support the EUAA at each stage of the process of ensuring these training programmes are compliant with European standards.
A pioneering objective for a European agency: developing a training centre in a Member state
The first stage of the process was launched in the last quarter of 2021. This involves identifying a Member state in which the EUAA could be established as a supplier of accredited teaching and/or professional training services. These should be able to provide both partial and complete training programmes, and be referenced to the appropriate level of the National Qualifications Framework of the state in question and to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF).
To do this, the consortium led by FEI has developed a methodology for the research and in-depth analysis of the 27 NQFs of the Member states and, more widely, their higher education systems. The aim of this research is to identify systems that are compatible with the current functioning of the EUAA, and with its constraints and development goals. Since the EUAA training programmes are hybrid and organised in the form of short individual modules, the most restrictive criteria were the authorisation for hybrid teaching and recognition of partial certificates.
Based on the results of this research, the EUAA will decide what route to follow for its development as an accredited supplier of higher education. This decision will make it possible to define and adapt the next steps for the support offered by FEI and its partners. This support will cover, among other things, the process of registration and accreditation in the chosen Member state and capacity building within the EUAA to ensure the provision of high-quality training.