On 6-7 May 2019 the MusiQuE Board held it’s Spring meeting in Brussels. The Board discussed a wide range of issues, including:

MusiQuE Strategy Paper 2020-2025
MusiQuE’s Board and staff discussed the draft version of the MusiQuE Strategy Paper 2020-2025. The discussion focused on the aims and goals that MusiQuE would like to achieve in relation to supporting the music education sector, as well as promoting and supporting quality enhancement both on a European level and beyond. The Board worked on the mission and vision statements to ensure that they reflect well MusiQuE’s current aspirations and challenges. Based on these discussions the draft version of the Strategy Paper will be improved and finalised for adoption by the Autumn meeting.

External review procedure for EQAR registration
The Board discussed the current state of affairs concerning the application for the renewal of MusiQuE’s registration on the European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR) – as the current registration on EQAR is valid until November 2020. The application for renewal has been submitted and approved by EQAR, meaning that MusiQuE is eligible to apply for renewal of being listed on the Register.
The preparations for the whole procedure are well underway: MusiQuE is working on its self-evaluation report (SER) and on the supporting documents, which will be submitted to the external review panel in December. The two-day site-visit of the external review panel will take place in February 2020.

Meeting with the external evaluator
The external evaluator of MusiQuE, Mr. Stefan Delplace, joined part of the Board meeting to share his comments on the development of MusiQuE and on its progress in implementing his previous recommendations.
Mr. Delplace commended the involvement of a student in the Board and MusiQuE’s increased level of independence from its partner organisations. He also recommended that MusiQuE improves its communication about how and how much it collaborates with various (national) quality assurance agencies. Mr. Delplace agreed with the Board that his next Report will be published by mid-November.

Peer-reviewers register
The Board has discussed the overview of the MusiQuE Peer-reviewers’ Register and possible ways of improvement of the Register in the future.
The Board has also considered and discussed the applications from peers with an interest in being listed on the Peer-reviewers Register and accepted 8 new peers.

MusiQuE’s ongoing and upcoming review activities
The Board discussed the status of the ongoing and upcoming reviews that MusiQuE is coordinating and preparing. Currently, MusiQuE is coordinating and preparing several quality enhancement and accreditation procedures as well as conducting three benchmarking projects. More information about the MusiQuE’s review activities can be found here.

Consideration of Review Reports
The Board of MusiQuE’s has considered two reports from the following procedures:

  • a report resulting from the programme review at the College of Music, Mahidol University, Thailand (site-visit 22-24 November 2018).
  • a report resulting from the programme accreditation procedure at the Kurmangazy Kazakh National Conservatory, Almaty, Kazakhstan (site-visit 9-10 April 2019).
  • a report resulting from the pre-college programme review at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana (site-visit 26 October 2018)
Evaluating and improving MusiQuE’s procedures
The Board discussed the analysis of the 2018 feedback questionnaires submitted by the peers that took part in the review procedures, as well as those submitted by the institutions reviewed in 2018. The Board agreed on slight improvements of the MusiQuE’s procedures, such as a better balance in site-visit schedules between time for meetings and time for private debriefings of the Review Team members,  small improvements to the templates for institutions and for the Review Team to increase their user-friendliness, as well as a better guidance for institutions and Review Team members on how to plan the visits of classes during a site-visit. The document listing all of the changes made to MusiQuE’s procedures in relation to the feedback received will be shared with the institutions reviewed and with all MusiQuE peer-reviewers, and published on MusiQuE’s website.