Quality assurance

The standard and quality of educational provision in the Danish education system are assured by a number of elements, including:

• Common rules and guidelines (curricula) specifying the aims, contents and duration of programmes and individual subjects.
• Testing and examination system, with the use of external examiners.
• Ministerial approval of provision and inspection in a varying degree within the different education areas.
• Quality rules, which have been introduced in a number of educational fields.
• The Danish Evaluation Institute (EVA) and the Accreditation Agency ACE Denmark, which both play an important role in the national system of quality assurance.
  

Private education institutions at primary and secondary level may operate without any state approval. However, if they wish for their pupils to be eligible for state study grants they must accept an accreditation procedure.

For all higher education programmes, accreditation is mandatory and a precondition for attaining public funding. The accreditation system is based on the 2007 Act on the Accreditation Agency for Higher Education. The Act aims to create a system with a view to ensuring and documenting the quality and relevance of higher education in the Danish educational institutions.

According to the Accreditation Act, the Accreditation Council is the specific unit which makes the decisions regarding accreditation of all higher education study programmes. Decisions are made on the basis of accreditation reports prepared by accreditation operators:

• For university study programmes under the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, ACE Denmark prepares the accreditation reports.
• For higher education study programmes under the Danish Ministry of Education and the Danish Ministry of Culture, EVA prepares the accreditation reports.
  EVA also carries out systematic evaluations within the area of early childhood education as well as evaluations of programmes, teaching and learning in compulsory schooling and in youth programmes.

For more information, please see www.eva.dk and www.acedenmark.dk