NVAO
NVAO (in Dutch: Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatieorganisatie) is the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders. The organisation was established by international treaty and it ensures the quality of higher education in the Netherlands and Flanders.
Tasks
NVAO has the following tasks:
- assessing the quality control of higher educations institutions in the Netherlands;
- the accreditation of programmes offered by higher education institutions in the Netherlands and Flanders;
- the initial accreditation of programmes that are not yet offered and/or registered in the Netherlands and Flanders;
- to contribute towards emphasizing the distinctive features of programmes or institutions by assessing these quality features at the request of institutions in the Netherlands and Flanders;
- to establish a commission of experts that will advise about the institutional audit or initial accreditation of a programme and to aprove a commission of experts as proposed by the higher education institution that will advise about the accreditation of exisiting programmes (in the Netherlands). These commissions always include a student member.
- to have an active internationalisation policy in place regarding higher education and quality assurance in order to reach agreement and cohesion;
- undertaking other tasks commissioned by the Dutch-Flemish Committee of Ministers;
- reporting to the Dutch-Flemish Committee of Ministers about the quality of higher education programmes and making proposals in the interest of this quality;
- contributing to the public debate on the developments in higher education within the scope of NVAO's primary tasks.
