Higher education quality experts of Turkey and UK meet on first “Turkey-UK Workshop on Quality in Higher Education”
Higher education quality experts of Turkey and UK meet on first “Turkey-UK Workshop on Quality in Higher Education”
THEQC and British Council Turkey co-organized “Turkey-UK Workshop on Quality in Higher Education: Improving the Processes and Reliability of National Quality Systems” in Ankara on January 14, 2020. During the workshop, experiences and examples of practices in the national systems of UK and Turkey were shared.
British Ambassador to Turkey Sir Dominick Chilcott and THEQC President Prof. Dr. Muzaffer Elmas delivered opening speeches during the event. THEQC Vice President Prof. Dr. Sibel Aksu Yıldırım, British Council Turkey Director Cherry Gough, British Council Turkey Education Director Ayşen Güven, UK-based Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) CEO Douglas Blackstock, representatives of Dundee University and London University-Goldsmith, THEQC members, QAA representatives, administrators of various HEIs from Turkey and UK, external experts assigned in THEQC Institutional External Evaluation Program, specialists and students attended the workshop.
Aiming to exchange opinions and information on the national policies in order to improve higher education standards and evaluate existing practices in the quality assurance processes of the two countries, the workshop contributed to the determination of possible cooperation areas between Turkey and the UK. The two countries are planning to organize a conference on quality in higher education in near future.
In his opening speech, THEQC President Prof. Dr. Elmas provided information on the establishment and activities of THEQC: “The main purpose of THEQC is to create a simple, flexible and dynamic quality assurance system that is compatible with our country’s goals as well as quality agencies in different parts of the world by contributing to the establishment and development of quality culture in HEIs,” Prof. Dr. Elmas said, adding that: “In this manner, our Council kicked off membership processes for international quality organizations. We started our endeavors in this regard with full membership process for THE European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), and have lately gone through the site visit of ENQA review panel. Our next goal is to become full members of Asia Pacific Quality Network (APQN) and International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies (INQAAHE).”
Touching upon the changes in quality and accreditation processes in higher education, Prof. Dr. Elmas also stated: “The global trends in higher education necessitate universities to turn into globally competitive, quality-oriented and dynamic structures. To achieve this, our universities need to establish knowledge-based management systems which integrate learning and teaching, research and development and administrative systems, allow universities to do planning, analyze and check their outcomes and monitor themselves with a continuous improvement approach. The universities should focus on equipping students with necessary knowledge and skills, creating learning environments that meet the requirements of our age, employing suitable teaching staff, tracking graduates and following national and international innovations.”
“The knowledge-based and integrated management systems that are expected to be used in quality and accreditation processes should reduce bureaucratic burden and be designed in accordance with the output-oriented approach. To that end, THEQC has developed the Quality Assurance Management Information System (QAMIS). THEQC’s all processes related to the institutional external evaluation are integrated to this system so that they can be maintained much more efficiently,“ Prof. Dr. Elmas went on. He ended his speech by stressing that establishing a system is more important than evaluation and quality is under the responsibility of universities.
Following Prof. Dr. Elmas’ speech, THEQC Vice President Prof. Dr. Sibel Aksu Yıldırım made a presentation, in which she underlined that THEQC was established with the aim of evaluating quality assurance systems of HEIs and providing quality-oriented guidance and leadership. Informing the participants on the Council’s areas of activity, Prof. Dr. Yıldırım stated: “THEQC contributes to the establishment and consolidation of internal quality systems in HEIs that focus on the realization of their mission and objectives while subjecting these systems to external evaluation. In this scope, a total of 160 HEIs have so far been evaluated, thus completing the external evaluation processes of all the HEIs with graduates. THEQC also conducts the authorization and recognition processes of national and international accreditation agencies. To date, the Council has authorized 12 national accreditation agencies and recognized 3 international accreditation agencies operating in Turkey. THEQC also exert efforts to disseminate quality assurance culture in the higher education system. For this purpose, THEQC provides guidance services to HEIs, organizes events and engages in a variety of publication activities.”
Prof. Dr. Yıldırım continued her presentation by introducing the rubric approach that will be employed in the 2020 Institutional External Evaluation Program. Expressing that the evaluation criteria were simplified with this new approach designed by the Council, she pointed out that the rubric approach aims to increase the reliability of evaluation processes and enable consistency between the reports written by evaluation teams.
In her presentation, British Council Turkey Education Director Ayşen Güven said: “This workshop, which has been organized to consolidate the partnership between THEQC and British Council in the field of teaching English language in institutional and national framework and improve the areas of cooperation in other fields, has been a successful example of the joint works undertaken by the two countries and our institutions. This workshop is also a preliminary work for the Regional Higher Education Quality Conference that is to be held by British Council in Turkey during 2020. We will maintain our efforts to create broader areas of cooperation in the field of education between Turkey and the UK.”
The QAA’s CEO Douglas Blackstock also made a presentation during the workshop. Speaking on the role of QAA in the field of higher education in UK, Blackstock said: “QAA undertakes country reviews and safeguard standards to improve the quality of UK higher education wherever it is delivered around the world. We adopt specialized quality approaches for every constituent country of the UK, which consists of Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and work on a variety of subjects such as quality evaluation and assurance, quality assurance of transnational education and strategic international engagement. I am very glad to be here today to discuss the higher education quality assurance sectors of Turkey and UK with the Turkish Higher Education Quality Council and British Council. This workshop will be an important step towards future collaborations between the two countries in this field.”
In the second half of the workshop, five working groups made up of experts in the field discussed on a variety of subjects including improving internal quality assurance system and quality culture in HEIs, identifying similarities and differences between the UK and Turkey quality assurance experience, possible future partnership areas between Turkey and the UK on quality assurance, role of students in review processes and international quality assurance networks, and challenges in institutional evaluation processes and program accreditation.
Below are some of the presentations made during the workshop:
