Northern and Baltic states higher education quality assurance agencies meeting in Copenhagen

2016-08-31

On August 25-26th SKVC delegates took part in a joint Northern and Baltic states higher education quality assurance agencies meeting in Copenhagen (Denmark). The way of how the  Student Centered Learning paradigm should be implemented by higher education institutions and evaluated by quality assurance agencies was discussed. The representatives of European Student Union, UK quality assurance agency and Roskilde University shared the positions and experience of their respective institutions regarding student centered learning realization and evaluation in high schools. The experience from student centered learning evaluation projects (Peer Assessment of Student Centered Learning, www.pascl.eu and Time for a paradigm change: student centered learning (T4SCL), http://www.t4scl.eu/) was recalled. The meeting brought out the fact that student centered learning realization is quite complicated process and the evaluation of this aspect is usually carried out as an integral part of general evaluation of the quality of high school activity. Most often the student centered learning is not evaluated as a separate criterion but in relation with other ones.

The delegates also discussed the conformity of higher education to the expectations of social shareholders, especially the labor market. The representatives of Danish accreditation institution, Aalborg university and Danish business confederation shared their insights and experience. The idea that conformity to the needs of labor market and the graduates employability could be the most important criteria for education quality evaluation was discussed. It was denoted that Denmark started to apply the education funding practice in regards to graduates employability. Employability numbers, active employers participation in both internal and external evaluation processes are very important factors. But it was also agreed on that all of that it might be not enough to guarantee the quality of education. Every criterion and piece of data should be analyzed in a general context and study program implementation or high school activity should be evaluated as a whole. The quality of higher education has number of summands.
 
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