The quality of higher education has become a very important topic in the Slovak Republic in recent years and is also related to the state's activities in the legislative area. In direct connection with the preparation of accreditation of higher education institutions in the Slovak Republic, the creation of internal systems for ensuring the quality of education has become an indispensable condition. When creating internal quality assurance systems, higher education institutions applied their own approach reflecting their specific conditions and used various methodologies. The result of the solution was the creation of internal systems for ensuring the quality of education in specific conditions. Subsequently, an institutional assessment of the compliance of the systems with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) was carried out by an independent entity, the Slovak Accreditation Agency for Higher Education, including an assessment of the implementation of internal quality assurance systems. The contribution is dedicated to a deeper understanding of the resistance to changes related to internal quality assurance at selected universities. The contribution is based on knowledge and experience gained during the assessment of the implementation of the quality assurance system at universities. The identification of gaps in implementation was based on secondary information sources comparing the rules set in individual parts of the standards and their application in specific conditions of the university, as well as the conclusions of semi-structured interviews with respondents who are involved in the implementation of individual rules at the university. The respondents included heads of departments, teachers, guarantors of study programs, as well as representatives of practice and students. The evaluation of the documentation and interviews showed that the main signs of resistance to changes are formalism, increasing bureaucracy, shortcomings of the formal agenda and insufficient attention paid to teachers. This resistance is mainly a consequence of insufficient internal communication at the university and the setting of several documents based only on a theoretical perception of the issue without a discussion of the practical and effective setting of rules within the internal quality assurance system.

Keywords: Quality, assurance, university, gaps, resistance.