On October 21-25, as part of the Erasmus+ DeSIRe project, a training for members of project consortium and a regular meeting of the project management took place at the University of Granada, Spain. ANQA was represented by Meri Barseghyan, specialist at Policy Development Division, and Alina Melkonyan, communication technology responsible.
The participants were introduced to the sessions on "Media & Digital Literacy", "Equity, Diversity and Inclusion", "Essential Entrepreneurial Skills: Initiative and Proactivity" and "Reflective Thinking and Evaluating Skills". Specialists from the University of Granada presented the methodology for the introduction, development, and assessment of soft skills, as well as shared their practice of HEI-employer cooperation and the use of digital resources.
During the management meeting on October 24, the discussions focused on the project’s ongoing activities and the establishment of soft skills centres.
It should be noted that the project’s quality assurance processes are coordinated by ANQA in cooperation with the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement (NCEQE) of Georgia and LUT University of Finland. During the management meeting, Meri Barseghyan introduced the project’s ongoing quality assurance processes, provided insight into the development of the Quality Assurance Guidelines that ensure their compliance with the project description and planned outcomes. Ms. Barseghyan stated that currently the Internal Quality Evaluation Team conducts a survey on the creation of online soft skills modules and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) among training participants. The results will be analysed and shared with the project consortium for the further enhancement of the training.
Development of Soft Skills at Higher Education Institutions of Armenia and Georgia in Compliance with the 21st Century Labour Market Requirements (DeSIRe) is a three-year Erasmus + project (2024-2027) that aims to ensure inclusive, equal quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for everyone, providing soft and professional skills in line with working career and market requirements.
Within the scope of the Erasmus+ DeSIRe project, transferable soft skills modules/MOOCs will be developed, to be introduced in the consortium partner HEIs from Armenia and Georgia.
The coordinator of the project is Vanadzor State University after Hovhannes Tumanyan. 17 partner organisations and HEIs from Armenia, Georgia, Finland, Spain and Ireland are involved in the project.