Peer review is a way to do external evaluation, and it supports the development of activities as well as quality assurance and improvement in the assessed institutions. Peer review is based on criteria. The peer review group of external experts is invited to assess the operations of a VET provider such as teaching and teaching support services. Peer review has been commonly in use in higher education, and its use expanded to VET at the start of the new millennium. The peer review process has become established as a tool for quality assurance and quality improvement.

The European Peer Review Manual describes a European standard procedure for carrying out Peer Reviews in vocational education and training. The European Peer Review procedure is in line with the principles of Common Quality Assurance Framework (CQAF) and guidelines of later acknowledged European Quality Assurance Reference Framework.

Link to the European Peer Review Manual for VET

In Finland the peer review has also been used as a tool to improve the quality of projects. There are own Peer Review Quality Areas and Criteria for projects in Finnish. This handbook includes quality areas for project activities and peer review for an individual project, indicators and examples of the peer review criteria. 
 

Finnish Peer Review Quality Areas and Criteria for VET

This handbook includes quality areas and criteria for Finnish VET. The purpose of the handbook is to be practical in nature and to help peers to assess the educational organisation’s operations and help the organisation to develop its own activities. Each quality area is structured in such a way that it contains the different steps of the EQAVET quality cycle and can also be taken separately as a peer review focus area.

Laws, regulations and other instructions, along with the operational environment, define the framework within which education providers are tasked to set their goals and to outline their operations. The latest legislation in Finland has increased the decision-making authority of education providers, which has highlighted the significance of the operative outlines on their level. 

Quality areas for Finnish VET:

  • Quality Area 1: The organisation and planning of education and qualifications 
  • Quality Area 2: Student applications and admissions 
  • Quality Area 3: Developing, monitoring and updating a personal competence development plan 
  • Quality Area 4: Acquisition of competence 
  • Quality Area 5: Learning environments
  • Quality Area 6: Learning at work (including apprenticeships and training agreements)
  • Quality Area 7: Demonstration, assessment and verification of competence 
  • Quality Area 8: The performance and effectiveness of qualifications and training 
  • Quality Area 9: Strategic planning
  • Quality Area 10: Leadership
  • Quality Area 11: The management of customers, partnerships and stakeholder cooperation
  • Quality Area 12: The management and planning of human resources
  • Quality Area 13: Student welfare, interaction and involvement
  • Quality Area 14: Information management
  • Quality Area 15: Quality management

 

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European Peer Review Quality Areas and Criteria for VET

European Peer Review Quality Areas and Criteria for VET providers (cover)

 

The development work on European Peer Review Quality Areas and Criteria has been carried out as a joint project by the NRPs of Croatia, Estonia, Finland and Slovenia from 2019-2021 (Quality Areas 1-10), following the earlier project by the NRPs of Austria, Croatia, Finland and Slovenia from 2017-2019 (Quality Areas 11-15). In the development consideration has been given to the European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for VET and its additional components (EQAVET+) and the current change in the operating environment of education and training.

Representatives of the VET providers from each of the partnering countries have been important partners in the development work. In addition, the criteria and indicators have been piloted and then further developed based on the feedback received from the VET providers and other pilot participants.

New criteria for international peer review were published in 2021

The handbook is a practical toolbox, which includes 15 quality areas that relate to the core activities of VET. It is designed for international peer review, wherein at least one of the evaluators is from a different country than the VET provider reviewed.

Quality Areas:

  • QA 1 Strategic planning
  • QA 2 Quality assurance     
  • QA 3 Knowledge management
  • QA 4 Management and leadership
  • QA 5 Management of infrastructure, facilities and finances
  • QA 6 Planning and management of human resources
  • QA 7 Equality and equal opportunities
  • QA 8 Internal relations
  • QA 9 External relations
  • QA 10 Internationalisation
  • QA 11 Pedagogical framework and planning the pedagogical processes
  • QA 12 Teaching and learning
  • QA 13 Work-based learning (WBL) outside the school
  • QA 14 Assessment and certification
  • QA 15 Learning results and outcomes
Attachments
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Peer Review Impact

Peer Review Impact Guidelines 

The main aim of the Peer Review Impact Guidelines is to help VET providers, institutions and training centres to set up and carry out Peer Reviews and help them stay focused on the impact at all phases of the Peer Review process as well as to ensure impact after the Peer Review.

Peer Review Assessment Tool

The Peer Review Assessment tool seeks to promote the use of findings generated in the Peer Review thus enhancing the overall impact of Peer Review on the reviewed VET provider. The guide leads through an assessment of the Peer Review process including measures and activities undertaken as a result of the Peer Review and their impacts. While institutional preconditions and the quality of the Peer Review are also taken into account in this endeavour, the main focus lies on what happened after the Peer Review and how the results of the Peer Review were used to engender improvement and change.
 

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