Facultad de Derecho

El Sistema de Garantía Interna de Calidad

 

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is organised around the principles of quality, mobility, diversity and competiveness. It is orientated towards the achievement of strategic aims, such as the adoption of a system of easily comparable qualifications, quality assurance, structuring of university studies into two levels (undergraduate and postgraduate) and the implementation of a European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). Thus, the aim is to offer a high quality European education system which promotes Europe’s economic growth, its international competitiveness and the mobility of its citizens through continuing education and training.

 

In Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area, the European Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education states that quality assurance is the instrument which allows a shared set of values, expectations and good practice within the EHEA framework, thus ensuring transparency and mobility. Quality assurance includes processes such as assessment, accreditation and audit, allowing the institutions to set up means to assure and demonstrate the quality of their programmes and degrees.

Along similar lines, the Universities Organic Law (amended by the Amendment Organic Law of 12 April 2007 and Royal Decree 1393/2007 of 29 October, governing the organisation of official university education) provides that Quality Assurance Systems are part of the new curriculums and the basis for efficient functioning of the new organisation of the education system.

The Law Faculty is aware of the importance of quality in the framework of the European Higher Education Area, considering it a strategic factor in ensuring that its graduates’ skills are valued by employers and society in general. Additionally, the Faculty believes that training its students in a rigorous legal and research environment enables graduates to make a greater contribution to society. As a key part of its quality policy, the Faculty sets out to make every effort to try to satisfy the reasonable needs and expectations of students, teaching, research, administrative and support staff, the University governing bodies and society in general, undertaking to use available resources, always complying strictly with applicable legal requirements.

On that basis, the UAM Law Faculty has drawn up an Internal Quality Assurance System - a protocol to ensure control, assessment, review and continuing improvement of each of the degrees taught in the Law Faculty. Therefore, it covers both Undergraduate and Postgraduate studies, and includes issues such as:

• Design of a documented, public procedure.
• Control and assessment, through indicators, with preparation of annual follow-up reports for all official degrees.
• Proposal for improvement plans, on the basis of malfunctions detected in the way a degree is operating through annual follow-up reports for each official degree.

The bodies responsible for implementing, developing and controlling the Faculty’s Internal Quality Assurance System are:

• The Coordinators of the Faculty’s Undergraduate studies and official Master’s Degrees.
• The Teaching and Monitoring Committee for Undergraduate studies and the Monitoring Committee for Postgraduate studies.
• The Quality Assurance Committee.
• The Faculty Assembly.