“HARMONIZING QUALITY ASSURANCE STRATEGIES IN GEORGIA WITH STANDARDS FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE IN THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION AREA (ENQA)’’ -DISSEMINATION STRATEGY IN THE FRAMEWORK OF TEMPUS PROJECT

The article deals with the findings of the gap analysis conducted by the institutions as the result of the workpackage2 in the framework of the TEMPUS project TNE_QA (Promoting Quality and Recognition of Transnational Education in Armenia and Georgia). Synthetic self-evaluation of TEMPUS Project partner Universities was provided via gap analysis to harmonize the quality assurance strategies with the standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ENQA).

At first 7 domains were defined by the questionnaire:
1. Policy and procedures for quality assurance;
2. Approval, monitoring and periodic review of programs and awards;
3.Assessment of students;
4.Quality assurance of teaching staff;
5.Learning resources and student support;
6. Information systems;
7.Public information.

For each domain, the guidelines of ENQA & OECD/UNESCO were followed and a realistic and honest evaluation of the institution position was provided. The exercise was done from the point of internal quality assurance of HEIs.

Gap analysis provided by the institutions showed whether:
1. the institution was doing particularly well regarding the criterion, the procedures existed and the evaluation results were good: no particular change or improvement was needed;
2. the institution was performing average on the criteria: the procedures existed and some results were satisfying, but there was still some room for improvement;
3. the institution performed poorly, either because the procedures were not yet operational or because the institution struggled to get acceptable results on the criterion;
4. the institution did not at all cover some aspects or all of the aspects of a criterion.

The comments showing the reason of the existing gap helped the institution better understand the concrete situation and present some evidence.

The concrete findings helped the HEIs find the strength and weakness of their internal quality assurance system and define the ways of improvement.