Current Status and Prospects for the Quality Assurance in Border Guards Training: European Experience

Abstract The article reveals the current status of the quality assurance development in the training process of the European Union (EU) border guard agencies. Besides, the study aims to describe the prospects for further quality assurance development of the border guards training in the EU countries. The views of scientists on the concepts of “quality assurance and control” and “quality of training” were critically studied. The quality of a border guard’s training was defined as a set of knowledge, skills and competencies of a border guard, including a border guard’s personal qualities, characteristics, which define a person as a specialist in the sphere of the state border protection and distinguishes him or her from other specialists and ensures success along the border guard career path. The study of the quality assurance system of border guards’ training in the EU countries revealed that it is conducted by the European policies and educational and training standards and promotes the formal certification and external accreditation of border guards’ training. It is indicated that the prospects for developing quality assurance mechanism for all-European border guard courses are connected with the possibility to provide external accreditation for such courses as: Introduction to Educational Technology and Training Delivery Methodology, which the author completed in 2017 and 2018. The process of accreditation is being conducted by an international quality assurance agency. The quality assurance system of the border guards training in EU is used in the Joint European Master’s Program in Strategic Border Management, developed by FRONTEX Agency in cooperation with European educational establishments. So, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine can be particularly interested in this program, in order to facilitate the increasing of quality of Ukrainian border guards training.