Presentation of the START project at the ENQA Annual Forum

During the annual Members Forum of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), held between 17 and 19 April 2024 in the city of Hannover, Germany, in relation with the implementation of the tasks of the START project, in which NEAA is a partner , Junior Expert Dyani Kurulenko participated in three consecutive sessions in small groups on the topic "Incorporation of social inclusion criteria in the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ESG)".

At the beginning of each session, the START project was briefly presented along with an introduction to the issues of social inclusion of vulnerable groups in higher education. The presentations were also attended by Cristina Ghitulica, Vice President of ENQA and General Manager of ARACIS, the Romanian HEQA agency and a START partner.

After presenting the goals and objectives of the project, as well as the partners in it, three discussion questions were asked regarding the views of the representatives of the European HEQA agencies on the target groups, the good practices in each of the countries, as well as whether it is necessary to include social inclusion and the social dimension of HE in the ESG. During the three discussion groups, in addition to the representatives of Bulgaria and Romania, representatives of agencies from Turkey, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Georgia, Germany, Ukraine, Spain, and the United Kingdom took part.

The participants shared the specific understandings of the term "vulnerable group" in the national context of their countries, as well as existing good practices and weaknesses in the inclusion of said groups in higher education. Virtually all participants singled out students with disabilities, refugee and migrant students, and students with low socioeconomic status as vulnerable groups.

In Turkey, a wide-ranging methodology for the social inclusion of vulnerable groups is applied, and when applying policies for inclusion, no specific definition of these groups is used. This leads to an almost individualized approach to the representatives of different groups, which takes into account the specific difficulties that students face. One of the good practices is the adaptation of the exams to the needs of individual students. Among the specific vulnerable groups in Turkey, some age groups are considered, as well as married students.

The representative of the Dutch agency expanded the set of vulnerable groups by adding to them students with special educational needs (e.g. students on the autism spectrum) as well as foreign students (refugees, migrants, etc.) who do not speak the local language/language of study.

Poland obliges universities to provide access to universities for students with disabilities. However, the representative of the Polish agency raised another issue – the potential for abuse of social assistance and inclusion systems by persons who are objectively not socially vulnerable.

The representatives of Hungary and Georgia drew attention to the report of the Working Group on the Social Dimension to the Bologna Follow-Up Group, which was published in 2024 (https://ehea.info/Immagini/BFUG_WG_Social_Dimension_2021-2024_FINAL_REPORT.pdf ). Draft indicators for social inclusion in higher education based on the aforementioned report are currently being discussed in Georgia.

Georgia also considers minorities (although no clear definition of the term “minorities” was stated during the discussion) as a vulnerable group. The representative of the Georgian agency raised a specific issue with refugee and migrant students, namely the lack of refugee status or the difficulty of obtaining it, and the subsequent difficult access to social inclusion policies. A similar problem exists with students with disabilities – an example was given of an institutional accreditation procedure where the university did not report a single student with disabilities, which in itself raises the question of whether it is even possible for such students to be in training. The existing training of experts in expert groups on the topic of social inclusion was noted as a good practice.

In Germany, there are policies for social inclusion of a wide range of groups. Among the above described common definitions of vulnerable groups, Germany also includes representatives of first-generation academics (students from families without higher education). The representative of one of the German agencies for quality in higher education shared that in Germany there are good practices for social inclusion at the university level, but not at the national/state level.

Vulnerable groups in Ukraine also include military veterans and their children, students subject to forced or unavoidable relocation due to the military crisis, as well as students in de facto occupied territories.

Spain is also differentiating specific vulnerable groups, namely victims of terrorism, as well as students suffering from affective sexual disorders. The representative of the Spanish agency raised the issue of the bureaucratic dimension of social inclusion, which, on the one hand, helps to identify and cater to individual problems and needs, but also hinders access to social assistance and inclusion. On the question of including criteria for social inclusion in the ESS, the representative of Spain expressed the opinion that the expansion of the ESG in this direction would lead to more countries incorporating policies for the social dimension of higher education, as this opinion was shared by most of the participants in the discussion.

Vulnerable groups in the UK include so-called "nomadic" students, or students who for various reasons have to change their place of residence frequently. In Turkey, Spain, the United Kingdom and other countries, there are special offices in universities where students can share their specific needs and learn information and guidance about available support and inclusion opportunities.