As a result of intensive cooperation with the National Center for Professional Education Quality Assurance, internal quality assurance capacities have been developed in the universities, reform groups have been formed, which will assist the HEIs in the process of strengthening the quality culture and preparing for accreditation.
On September 3, the final conference of the program "Capacity Building in QA of HEIs in Armenia" was held at the Northern University. The aim of the seven-month Project aimed at the development of the internal quality assurance capacity of HEIs by setting up reform groups, as well as preparing the universities for the process of institutional accreditation. The Project was coordinated by National Center for Professional Education Quality Assurance Foundation (ANQA) and was funded by UNESCO. The stakeholder HEIs were the French University in Armenia, the National University of Architecture and Construction of Armenia, the Northern University and the Eurasia International University.
Within the framework of the Project, the representatives of the top management staff of four universities, quality assurance specialists, teaching staff members were trained, the peculiarities of effective self-evaluation and expert work were discussed, and then two specialists from each institution were involved in the external evaluation process of their own university as experts.
During the conference, the representatives of HEIs mentioned that the development of expert capacities in the universities contributes to the development of the quality assurance system. It was important that within the framework of the program, an atmosphere of cooperation and exchange of experience was formed with both ANQA and the representatives of partner HEIs which contributed to the success of the program.
Ruben Topchyan, the director of ANQA, highlighted that due to the Project, the universities will be much more prepared for the next accreditations and thanks to the formed capacities will be able to analyze their academic programmes and present their successes in a comprehensible language, with the right emphasis.
The panel discussion touched upon quality assurance and its characteristic. According to the participants of the discussion, quality assurance is like a formative assessment: continuous feedback is an essential prerequisite for progress.
The participants of the conference agreed that all universities need internal quality assurance capacity building projects at regular intervals in order to "keep up with the pulse of rapidly evolving quality assurance processes," continuously strengthen the quality assurance culture within their educational institution, and spread their successful experience. ANQA, in its turn, expressed readiness to cooperate with all educational institutions that have such a desire.