- certifying, according to quality standards, the capacity of education providing organisations to fulfil the beneficiaries’ expectations;
- contributing to the development of an institutional culture of higher education quality;
- assuring the protection of direct beneficiaries of study programmes at higher education level by producing and disseminating systematic, coherent and credible information, publicly accessible, about education quality;
- proposing to the Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation strategies and policies of permanently improving higher education quality, in close correlation with pre-university education.
ARACIS's tasks in accreditation
ARACIS shall have the following tasks relating to the field of accreditation:
Periodically draws up the methodology and standards for various types of programmes and higher education providers, which are endorsed by MECI and approved by Government decision .
Evaluates, according to the standards and methodology approved by Government decisions, on demand or on its own initiative, and proposes the authorisation, respectively accreditation of higher education providers and study programmes. On the basis of accreditation reports, MECI draws up the normative acts for setting up higher education structures.
ARACIS's tasks in quality assurance
ARACIS shall have the following tasks in the field of quality assurance:
Periodically formulates and reviews, on the basis of good practice, national reference standards and performance indicators for quality evaluation and assurance in higher education;
Collaborates with MECI and ARACIP in drawing up and promoting policies and strategies of action, in order to increase education quality in Romania;
Annually organises consultations with higher education institutions in order to establish the priorities of quality assurance;
Draws up and publishes its own procedures of external evaluation of education quality ;
Concludes, with Romanian and foreign education institutions, service contracts for the external quality evaluation of higher education programmes and programme providers, as well as for the inter-institutional evaluation of similar programmes;
Carries out the quality evaluation of higher education institutions and programmes, at the Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation’s request. The conditions concerning the evaluation activity are established by contract;
Publishes the external evaluations’ results;
Publishes manuals, guides, synthesis papers of good practice in quality assurance and evaluation;
Periodically draws up, every 3 years, system analyses on the Romanian higher education quality;
Collaborates with similar agencies in other countries in order to develop and apply efficient measures of improving the quality of higher education programmes;
Elaborează Codul de etică profesională a experților ARACIS;
Draws up the Professional code of ethics of ARACIS experts;
Annually publishes a report on its own activity;
Draws up, every 3 years, quality self-evaluation reports of its own activity, in order to prepare external evaluation by similar agencies from other countries.
