Quality assurance and assessment frameworks of biosystems engineering studies - situation in the Netherlands

All university programmes in the Netherlands have to be accredited by an independent agency. The programmes are assessed by a quality agency and their report is the basis for the accreditation decision. The Dublin descriptors play a very important role in the quality assurance. The programmes have to proof they meet the exit levels as described by the Dublin descriptors. The quality assurance systems used in the Netherlands is in line with the Qualification Framework of the European Higher Education Area. In the Netherlands there is no professional accreditation. At this moment there is an issue between the Dutch accreditation organisation (NVAO) and FEANI on accreditation of engineering programmes as Dutch law does not accept accreditation by other bodies than the NVAO. It is likely that these issues will be solved in 2010. The Biosystems Engineering related bachelor programme of Wageningen University is 180 credits but these 180 credits are not solely used for course work. The framework of the university prescribes 30 credits free choice for a minor and a bachelor thesis of at least 12 credits. This makes it impossible to meet the FEANI criteria by number; the programme is almost in line with the FEANI criteria when the relative shares of the different components are considered.