Abstract:

Quality of higher education has been considered as the basic priority for development of higher education institutions (HEIs) in last decades in many countries. The European activity related to the introduction of Bologna process (BP) has led among others to the formulation of the document Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) adopted by the ministers responsible for HE in BP countries in 2005. The importance of quality of higher education together with the interest in priorities of the BP has been approved also in the Central Asia region. The project supported with Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union is focused on enhancing capacities in implementation of BP reforms at institutional level at HEIs in two Central Asian regions – Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (partner countries), with the emphasis on internal quality assurance and institutional typology. The specific project objectives cover: mapping of current situation of quality assurance at both levels – individual partner HEIs as well as national level, identification of the principles/recommendations of the BP relevant for HEIs in the partner countries, interactive trainings, transfer of know-how and good practices, sharing experience between European HEIs and HEIs in partner countries, and stressing the new BP priorities set for its second decade (social issues, information systems). For investigation of the state of the art of internal structure and missions of each HEI the U-Map methodology is being used. In order to assure introduction of well-developed internal quality assurance systems three levels of evaluations are being applied – self-evaluation of partner HEIs, evaluation of experts of European HEIs participating in the project and evaluation done by external independent evaluator. The expected outputs of the project include fully trained management staff and implementation of newly developed and/or innovated internal quality assurance systems at HEIs in partner countries.

Keywords:

Quality of higher education, Bologna process, quality assurance systems, U-Map method.