SAAHE

Slovak Accreditation Agency for Higher Education (SAAHE) was established by Act No. 269/2018 Coll. as an independent public legal entity conducting external quality assurance of higher education in Slovakia.

The Agency’s supreme decision-making body is the Executive Board, which has nine members, nominated by the representations of higher education institutions, i.e., the Council of Higher Education Institutions of the Slovak Republic, the Slovak Rectors’ Conference, and the Student Council for Higher Education Institutions, and by employers’ representatives. The ninth member is the Chair of the Executive Board, appointed by the Minister of Education based on the results of a public selection procedure with public hearing. The operation of the Agency is managed by the Head of Office. The further structure of the Agency is organised into: Accreditation Department, Analytical Department, Economics and Operations Department, Legislative and Legal Unit and Internal Quality Assurance Unit. SAAHE has approximately 27 permanent staff members and a few part time
employees.

The Development Strategy of the Agency for the years 2022-2027 contains nine strategic objectives in three areas: accreditation activities; international cooperation; and quality culture. The value system of the Agency and its activities are determined by five principles: independence, transparency, professional and moral integrity, cooperation, and improvement. The mission of the Agency is to contribute to improving the quality of higher education in the Slovak Republic through external quality assurance tools following the European Standards for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ESG 2015) and in line with the expectations of stakeholders involved in education. The Agency provides higher
education institutions with a professional and independent view on the quality of education and strengthens the culture of quality. Agency is empowered to assess the compliance of the internal quality assurance system of a higher education institution with the Standards and to decide on the rights of the respective higher education institutions to independently establish new study programmes in  efined
fields of study and levels of education. The Agency is entitled to decide on the granting or non-granting of accreditation of a study programme in a new field of study and level of education, on the granting, non-granting or withdrawal of accreditation of the habilitation proceeding and/or the inauguration proceeding, to decide on the suspension of the proceeding for the application for state approval to operate as a private higher education institution, and to impose corrective measures on higher education institutions in relation to these rights.