Dear Mrs. Izmailova, tell us briefly about your professional background before you became the director of the National Acreditation Agency of the Russian Federation.

In 1988, I graduated from Leo Tolstoy Chechen-Ingush State University, Russian language and literature specialty, with the qualification of philologist, teacher of Russian language and literature.

In 1988, I started my didactic activity in the Republic of Ingushetia and I went through all stages from working as a teacher of Russian language and literature to the director of a school in the rural area.

Tell us briefly about the evolution of ARACIS (purpose and mission of the agency, the defining moments).

The Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS), hereinafter ARACIS, was founded in 2005 by the Emergency Ordinance (EO) no.75/2005 concerning quality assurance in education for external evaluation of quality in education. The EO 75/2005 was approved, with amendments, by Law no. 87/2006. Subsequently, the Law 87/2006 has been changed through successive legislative procedures that related mainly to organizational and procedural matters with regard to the effects of the external evaluations on higher education institutions but have not affected the mission of the agency and its independence.  

Ms. Doris Herrmann, over the last four years, AQAS, implicitly you, have become familiar names on the educational market in the Republic of Moldova. When did you hear for the first time about the Republic of Moldova?
Thank you for your kindness. Of course, I have heard about the Republic of Moldova before, but before I got involved in the TEMPUS project „Development of Quality Assurance in in Higher Education in Moldova” (QUAEM) I had no knowledge about the educational system of Moldova. So when the project started it was a learning process for all partners involved, I suppose.

Short historical background: When and how was the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Pre-university Education (ARACIP) established and what is its mission?

As a result of the change of the regime in 2005, the leadership of the Ministry of Education (Minister being then Mr. Mircea Miclea), established by law the two agencies for external evaluation - ARACIS for higher education and ARACIP for pre-university education as part of a general policy and legislation on education quality assurance and evaluation. Under the law, ARACIP is a public institution of national interest, subordinated to the Ministry of Education, with legal personality, with its own budget of revenues and expenditures, and financed from own incomes (evaluation fees paid by schools and funds attracted via various projects).