The Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth has prepared guidelines for the English Language Foundation Course, which is open to third-party country students based on a decision of the Council of Ministers dated 19 July 2023. Institutions of higher education wishing to operate the English Language Foundation Course on the basis of the above mentioned guidelines, prepare and submit for evaluation, to the CYQAA, the relevant Foundation Course, which is evaluated by the CYQAA.
The table below lists the English Language Foundation Courses which have been accredited by CYQAA.
1. English Language Foundation Programmes evaluated/accredited by the Agency
Droso Lavithi is an Education Officer at CYQAA, managing HEIs' applications for programmatic, departmental, and institutional evaluations.
She graduated with an athletic scholarship under the Workforce Education Department of Southern Illinois University in the USA, with a specialization in Home Economics Education. She also holds a Master Degree in Nutrition and Public Health from the Harokopio University in Athens.
She worked for 21 years as a Health Education (Home Economics) teacher in the Secondary Education of Cyprus.
CYQAA is the authorized National IMI System Coordinator. According to Directive 2005/36/ EC as amended by Directive 2013/55/ EU [article 21 (a) (3)], each Member State must notify the European Commission of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions it lays down for the award of academic qualifications covered by the automated system recognition ((Medical Doctor, Dentist, Nurse, Midwife, Veterinarian, Pharmacist, Architect). Notifications should be submitted in a timely manner to ensure that graduates of Higher Education Institutions benefit from the provisions of the Directive.

What is IMI?
The Internal Market Information system (IMI) is an IT application that connects authorities across the European Union (EEA). IMI allows authorities to communicate quickly and easily with their counterparts in other Member States.
Main Features
- IMI is a multilingual system available in all official languages.
- IMI has a multilingual search function aiming to help authorities find their counterparts in other EEA countries.
- Pre-translated questions, answers and forms for requesting and sharing information are provided, in the context of administrative cooperation supporting the Single Market.
- There is an integrated machine translation service for translating any free text included as part of an information exchange.
- It is easily adaptable to new policy areas.
- A tracking mechanism allowing authorities to follow the progress of their information exchanges.
IMI and the Single Market
EU laws set out mutual assistance and administration cooperation obligations for Member States in order to make the free movement of people, business, goods and services a reality. IMI helps authorities across European Economic Area to fulfill their obligations in multiple policy areas. It has succeeded in modernizing cross-border administrative cooperation and improving the functioning of the Single Market. Although the end users of IMI are mainly public authorities at national, regional and local level, the beneficiaries of this improved cooperation are businesses and persons who are the subject of the information exchanges (data subjects).
Advantages of the IMI system
- Easy to determine relevant competent authority.
- Easy to exchange information using pre-translated sets of questions and answers.
- Easy to track the status of information request.
- No development cost for expansion to new areas where authorities need to cooperate.
- Well-established support service.
- Legal certainty - based on an EU legal act.
Data Protection compliant IT tool
- Clear data protection provisions in the IMI Regulation.
- Monitored by the European Data Protection Supervisor.
- Strict access control to exchanged content.
- Access to the system and to data on a need-to-know basis.
- Member States control who has access to IMI.
Important information
- More than 485000 information exchanges have been sent through IMI since is launch in 2008.
- The use of the system increases year by year.
- In 2022, IMI supported 95 cross-border procedures in 19 different legal areas (directives or regulations).
- As of January 2022, IMI supports 4 new procedures in the areas of:
- ??? ??? ????????? ??? 2022 ?? ??? ??????????? 4 ????? ?????? ??? ???????:
- Enforcement of the posting rules for operators and drivers in the road transport sector (Mobility Package)
- Refusals to grant authorizations to acquire or possess firearms
Privacy Statements
- Rights of Data Subjects
- Collection of Information
- Request for Information from other Member State
- Provision of Information in other Member States
18 September 2023
1. Official Information Process of CYQAA Agency for the accredited Erasmus Mundus Joint Programme
The CYQAA Council has examined the Council of the European Union’s document, under the title “Council conclusions on the European Universities initiative – Bridging higher education, research, innovation and society: Paving the way for a new dimension in European higher education (2021/C 221/03)” through which the European Council calls upon Member States “with full respect for Member States’ competences and with regard to the principle of subsidiarity, institutional autonomy, academic freedom and in accordance with national and regional circumstances” to,
[35] Work together at international, national and regional level, as well as between governments and institutions, to identify and remove, where necessary, the obstacles towards more compatible higher education systems and closer strategic alliances of higher education institutions, building on the extensive work that has already been developed through the EEA, the EHEA and the ERA,
and
[37] Identify and remove, where necessary, obstacles to a European approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes, by reinforcing institutional linkages and procedures between evaluation, accreditation, and quality assurance agencies registered on EQAR, to find modalities of automatic mutual recognition, as well as by facilitating the implementation of quality assurance procedures and encouraging joint evaluation and accreditation of study programmes.
Within this framework the CYQAA Council has decided that as far as the Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Programmes, are concerned, the Agency will follow the same policy as other agencies in European countries for the programmes which will be selected by the European Commission. That is, the programme will be evaluated by only one agency which will be registered in EQAR, fully adopting, thus, the https://www.dipae.ac.cy/archeia/anakoinoseis/02_European_Approach_QA_of_Joint_Programmes_v1_0.pdf" European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes which was approved by the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).
CYQAA should be officially informed for the selection and the operation of such joint programmes. The accredited Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Programmes are published on the table below and they are announced by the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth in the Official Gazette of the Government.
Participating Cyprus universities should send the official decision of the competent European body (European Education and Culture Executive Agency) to CYQAA.









