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Strategy and policy
Reform Support

Ensuring Quality Digital Higher Education in Hungary

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Supporting reforms to improve the quality of education and training systems and ensure equal access to it

Funding Programme
Year
  • 2021

Ensuring Quality Digital Higher Education in Hungary

The European Union via its Technical Support Instrument (TSI) and the OECD Higher Education Policy Team have supported the Hungarian Ministry of Innovation and Culture (KIM) with the development of quality assurance policies, standards, and practices, to be implemented by the Hungarian Accreditation Committee (MAB) to advance the development of high-quality digital higher education in Hungary. The TSI project has also identified further supports that can enhance the capacity of Hungarian higher education institutions to plan and manage the quality of the digital teaching and learning they provide.

Context

The TSI support builds on the findings and recommendations of the project “Supporting the Digital Transformation of Higher Education in Hungary” (2020), which was carried out by the OECD in 2020-2021 with financial and expertise support from the European Union through the Structural Reform Support Programme.

A survey carried out as part of this project found that the Hungarian higher education system had made a successful transition to emergency remote instruction in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, using digital technologies to ensure that learners have continuing access to their study programmes, but that the quality of instruction provided during the pandemic had varied.

The project therefore recommended Hungary to rethink its existing regulatory and accreditation processes to ensure quality digital higher education.

Support delivered

Building on this recommendation, the TSI project has collected and analysed evidence on policies and practices for the quality assurance of digital higher education in Hungary and internationally.

Through national roundtables and international peer learning, the project has also facilitated a national dialogue among higher education policymakers, stakeholder organisations, institutions, practitioners and students on how Hungary’s regulatory, quality assurance and institutional support frameworks could be adapted to enhance the capacity of institutions and instructors to deliver high-quality online and hybrid study programmes.

Results achieved

The support delivered  has strengthened Hungary’s understanding of EU and international practice for the quality assurance of digital higher education through the publication of a technical report on Digital Higher Education: Emerging Quality Standards, Practices and Supports. This report has informed the development of the publication Ensuring Quality Digital Higher Education in Hungary, which offers a critical assessment of Hungary’s regulatory and quality assurance frameworks for higher education, and policy options for adapting these to the new demands of digitalisation.

Six peer learning events, as well as interviews and virtual site visits to higher education institutions have engaged more than 200 higher education policymakers and practitioners in a national debate on how to strengthen the quality of digital higher education in Hungary.

Useful links

More about the project

You can read the final report and the factsheet here: