The Commission d’évaluation de l’enseignement collégial is an independent and public quality assurance organization whose mission is to contribute to, and demonstrate the development of the quality of college education.
The Commission’s mission covers all college-level institutions governed by the College Education Regulations (RREC). Currently this comprises a network of 119 institutions.
As mandated by law, the primary function of the Commission is to evaluate the following elements for each institution :
- institutional policies on the evaluation of student achievement, including procedures for the certification of studies, and their implementation;
- institutional policies on program evaluation and their implementation;
- implementation of programs of study authorized by the Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, taking into account the objectives and standards assigned to them;
- objectives, standards, and implementation of programs of study established by the institution, taking into account the needs that these programs are designed to meet.
In 2002, the scope of the Commission’s mandate was modified to include, for cegeps and subsidized private colleges, the evaluation of:
- activities related to their educational mission regarding administrative and academic planning and management as well as instruction and support services;
- for cegeps this includes an evaluation of their strategic plans.
Furthermore, the Commission has been granted three major powers through legislation: the power to verify, the power to make recommendations, and declaratory powers to make its work publicly available.
Operating with a considerable degree of autonomy, the Commission can as a result collect from institutions any relevant information required to do its work, set forth recommendations on actions to improve quality in a specific area, and make its evaluation reports publicly available. The recommendations issued by the Commission require follow-up by the institutions concerned, which must inform the Commission of the work carried out to implement them.
The Commission is made up of four commissioners, including a President, appointed by the government for a term of up to five years, renewable once. Denis Rousseau, president, Éric Aubin, Gordon Roland Brown and Edith Joyal, Commissioners.
Twenty people assist the members of the Commission in their tasks.
To assist them in its work, the Commission calls on experts recognized for their competence in colleges or in the area of knowledge related to an evaluation operation. The personal information contained in this file consists of work coordinates and, at the request of some experts, home coordinates, as it is easier to reach them this way (name, address, home phone number, cell phone number, email address).
This information is stored in the Commission’s management and information system, and is organized according to evaluation operation. Access to the file is authorized for the following categories of individuals: the executive secretary, the coordinators, the commissioners and the commissioner’s secretary responsible for an operation (list of experts recruited for the operation under its responsibility only), system administrators and the administrative technician. Data has been stored since the creation of this system’s functionality in 2007. The Calendar of document retention specifies the details and retention rules for this data on an electronic medium.
In December 2021, the Commission d’évaluation de l’enseignement collégial received renewed accreditation from the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher education (INQAAHE). This recognition of the compliance of the Commission’s practices with international standards for quality assurance in higher education is valid for 5 years, until November 2026.
In its report, INQAAHE concludes that the Commission’s practices comply with the six international standards for quality assurance in higher education: Structure of the external quality assurance agency; The responsibility of the external quality assurance agency; Framework for the external quality assurance of higher education institutions; Relations with the public; Decision-making; Quality assurance in cross-border higher education.