More than Words: An Integrative Approach to Cooperation and Quality Assurance in Higher Education through Service-Learning

This experiential and critical pedagogy allows the development of transversal skills such as critical thinking, entrepreneurship, creativity, and civic engagement. Those are key for the next generations of students, researchers, and innovators to build a resilient society.

Today, we know the steps and requirements to implement service-learning in higher education. We also know the criteria to define high-quality service-learning, derived from the ability to develop co-participatory projects, empower students, or provoke high impacts on students’ learning & reflection, the community needs, and the university, among others. However, much of this research has been developed outside the European context. So, to what extent can the results of those studies be transferred to a different context with diverse considerations of quality, management, and institutional accreditation? We also have data from projects and guidelines regarding the institutionalization of service-learning at the European level. How can this knowledge inspire us about the challenges that pose for quality assurance? Quality assurance redefines problems such as overburdened stakeholders, the lack of institutional support, and the necessity to further engage students and faculty members in this kind of community-engaged projects. It requires a framework for quality assurance that supports mutual trust and facilitates recognition and mobility within and across national borders. Including service-learning in the accreditation processes of academic staff and higher education institutions has been seen as an impetus for its development.

This paper was presented at EQAF and reflects the views of the named authors only.

ISSN: 1375-3797

More than Words: An Integrative Approach to Cooperation and Quality Assurance in Higher Education through Service-Learning

Berta Paz Lourido

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