External assessment of VET in Estonia

External quality assurance of VET in Estonia is regulated by the Vocational Educational Institutions Act. The quality assurance activities delegated to HAKA (previously EKKA) have been laid down in the EKKA Conceptual Framework Document for QA in VET.

The objective of the quality assessment of vocational education is to foster the development of learning-oriented school culture and to increase the reliability of vocational education.

Quality assessment of vocational education provides an opportunity:

• For the school to get feedback about the quality of the study process and recommendations to develop it and to use the results of an independent external evaluation for the school’s strategic management.
• To inform interested groups (learners, labour market, state, the society in general) about how well vocational education meets the national demands, objectives of development plans, labour market needs and expectations of the learners.

HAKA is in charge of two types of assessment in VET:

1. Initial assessment and re-assessment of study programme groups (granting the right to provide instruction in a new group of programmes)
2. Quality assessment of study programme groups