A Peer Review is a form of external evaluation with the aim of supporting the reviewed educational institution in its quality assurance and quality development efforts. An external group of experts, called Peers, is invited to assess the quality of different fields of the institution, such as the quality of education and training provision of individual departments or of the entire organization. During the evaluation process, the Peers visit the reviewed institution.
An important aspect of the Peer Review is systematic learning about good practices and networking between similar organizations, but also between educational organizations and industry or other subjects in the local environment. A Peer Review can present strengths, weaknesses and showcase good practices. It can be a starting point for the improvement of work-based learning and it can help to identify good WBL practices too.
A good peer team consists of people with different kind of expertise. A Peer is a person, who is an equal of or is on an equal standing with the people whose performance is being reviewed and who works in a similar environment (and/or at a similar institution). A peer is external and independent and he/she has specific professional expertise and knowledge in the field.
The figure 4 shows the phases of the Peer Review for VET. More information of the Peer Review can be found in the European Peer Review Manual (European Peer Review Manual 2007, 8).
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Figure 4. Four phases of the European Peer Review. |