THE ROMANIAN AGENCY FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE ON PRE-UNIVERSITY EDUCATION RAQAPE   

What is RAQAPE?  

• Public institution of national interest working under The Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, with legal personality and own budget, working in compliance with the Law no.87/2006 on quality of education

Which is the mission for RAQAPE?        

RAQAPE accomplishes:

• The external evaluation of quality of education offered by pre-university schools and by other educational organizations;
• The authorization, the accreditation and the recurrent evaluation for pre-university school units.

Which is the purpose of the external evaluation made by RAQAPE?  
a) To certify the capacity of the school units to meet the customers' expectations as well as the quality standards;
b) To ensure the protection of the key and the consequent customers of the study programs, by producing and disseminating information about quality education;
c) To play a role in the development of a "culture of quality" in pre-university education organizations;
d) To recommend to the Ministry of Education and Research policies and strategies in order to improve the quality of education.     

What does actually RAQAPE?  

• Elaborates the standards, the reference standards and the performance indicators, the regulations for the institutional evaluation and accreditation, the manual of internal quality evaluation, the guides of good practices, the annual report considering its own activity, the system analyses concerning quality on Romanian pre-university level of education, recommendations for improving the quality of education at pre-university level, the professional code of conduct for the experts in evaluation and accreditation;
• Accomplishes the evaluation for authorization and accreditation for all educational organizations at pre-university level;
• Accomplishes, every three years, the recurrent evaluation of the accredited educational organizations;
• Recommend to The Ministry of Education and Research the authorization and the accreditation of educational institutions, for each level of education, study program or professional qualification;
• Accomplishes, on a contractual bases, at the Ministry of Education and Research request, the evaluation of the quality of pre-university education system;
• Accomplishes the quality monitoring and control, together with the School Inspectorates and the departments of the Ministry of Education and Research;
• Publishes the results of the external evaluation.

Which is the organizational structure of RAQAPE?

Management structures:

The RAQAPE Council (15 members):

• The President
• The Vice-president
• The two Heads of the RAQAPE departments
• The Head of the economic and administrative Office
• A legal counselor
• 9 experts from RAQAPE departments

The RAQAPE Executive Board (5 members):

• The President
• The Vice- president
• The two Heads of the RAQAPE departments
• The Headship of the economic and administrative Office

Departments and offices:

• The External Evaluation Department
• The Accreditation Department
• The Economic and Administrative Office
• The Legal Office
• The Human Resources Office
• The Internal Audit Office

The Communication and Public Relations Office  

Specific Legal Background:  

• The Law no. 84/1995 on Education, reviewed and amended;
• The Law no. 128/1997 on the Status of the Teaching Staff, reviewed and amended;
• The Law no.87/2006 on Quality of Education;
• Government Decision no.21/2007 on the standards for the external evaluation of the pre-university school units;
• Government Decision no.22/2007 on the methodology of evaluation for pre-university educational organizations;
• Government Decision no.1258/2005 on the RAQAPE organization and functioning, reviewed and amended;
• The Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 4925/2005 on the Internal regulation of the pre-university educational organizations.
• The Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 5338/11.10.2006 on the Methodology of selection and training of the RAQUAPE experts in evaluation and accreditation;
• The Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 5337/11.10.2006 on the professional code of conduct of the RAQUAPE experts in evaluation and accreditation;

Legislative Projects:

• The quality standards for the pre-university educational organizations;

General Legal Background;

• The Law no. 544/2001 and the Government Decision no. 123/2002 regarding the Free access to information of public interests;
• The Law no 52/2003 on the Transparence of the public decision-making;
• Government Decision no. 314/2001 on the Approval of the Social Dialogue Committee