Representatives of AUCA took part in the Forum on Quality Assurance

December 20, 2017

The first Central Asia Forum on Quality Assurance was held on December 8 in Almaty, Kazakhstan with the participation of four representatives from AUCA.

The issue of the quality of education is extremely important and relevant for all modern universities, including certainly for AUCA. As one of the leaders in the educational market of Kyrgyzstan, the American University in Central Asia has always strived to provide highest possible quality of education. The mission of the University laid the preparing of the leaders of Central Asia. In this regard, the participation of AUCA in the work of the first Central Asia Forum on Quality Assurance of education was quite natural.

The forum was held in Kazakhstan, Almaty, December 8th.

Experts from eight countries attended the forum: Netherlands, Azerbaijan, France, Greece, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The forum discussed the problems of ensuring the quality of education faced by modern HEIs and ways to solve them on the examples of different countries, the role of accreditation in higher education, the interest of employers in the processes of ensuring the quality of education, academic mobility of students, faculty and much more.

The Forum was organized by the Kazakhstan Independent Agency for Accreditation and Rating (NAAR) and the University of Narxoz.

AUCA was represented by: Steven Kessell - Dean of Faculty, Angelina Popova - Director of the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT), Galina Gorborukova - Head of the Sociology program and Ekaterina Kombarova - Coordinator of the CTLT.

During the Forum, participants from AUCA exchanged views and experiences with their colleagues from other countries, established new contacts to continue the exchange of experience, and also introduced the Forum participants to information about AUCA, its achievements, educational programs, partnerships and much more.

AUCA participants and organizers of the Forum

Discussing the outcomes of the Forum, Steven Kessell noted the following: “What impressed me most was the wide-range of perspectives on issues related to the quality of higher education that were presented. In addition to the representatives from most of the Central Asian countries, the main panel included representatives from western Asia/Eastern European and western European countries as well, which added to the diversity of opinions expressed. It showed that there is no “single” accepted approach to quality assurance, but instead many different schools of thought from which ideas can be taken."

Galina Gorborukova noted the timeliness of conduction of the Forum, and separately highlighted the interesting experience of the University of Narxoz, which is intensively working to increase and verify the quality of education.

The presentation of the rector of the Narxoz University - Krzysztof Rybinski, about the challenges and decisions in the issue of ensuring the quality of education was noted by another participant of the Forum from AUCA Angelina Popova.

"I was impressed by the presentation of the rector of Narxoz about students’ senior projects. Students work with companies or organizations and provide solutions to their specific problems", -Angelina Popova noted.

Ekaterina Kombarova highlighted the presentation of the Vice-Rector for Strategic Development of the Kazakh University of International Relations and World Languages ​​- Ardak Sahanova, dedicated to the methodology of developing and implementing the University's strategic plan.

"The work carried out at this university in the formation of the strategic plan can be considered as a benchmark work. Each direction of the plan is subjected to SWAT analysis, a series of studies and surveys are conducted, working groups are formed and much more. The strategic plan is complemented by road maps, a tactical plan. The team of the Vice-Rector for Strategic Development also has a risk management specialist which are carefully analyzed during the work on the plan," - Ekaterina Kombarova shared.

In general, all participants noted the high level of organization of the Forum, its relevance and high quality of presentations.

<< go to news list