Study Visit to Austria and the Czech Republic

(May 24-30, 2015)

I state with immense pleasure that with the support of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan I have been represented as a staff member of Azerbaijan University of Languages at the "Implementation of the Bologna Process" training program held on May 24-30, 2015 in Austria and the Czech Republic. Visiting these two countries within a short period of time and taking part in various meetings at higher education institutions, Ministry of Education, Quality Assurance Agencies and other institutions in both countries were significantly important to me.

 Following the agenda, during the first three days we visited Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency, Federal Ministry of Science, Research  and Economy, Institute of Scientific Research at Campus Wien as well as University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Boku. We had interesting meetings with different people on the implementation of the Bologna process, Quality Assurance and Management, higher education in Austria and its management.

 In the next days, we held meetings at several universities having a long history such as Palacky, Masaryk, Charles universities as well as the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and the University of Econmics, Prague. At the Czech institutions mentioned above, we were familiarized with the development of higher education, reform and professional development, developing internal QA system, the role and status of students in this process, their representation as well as obligations of students in QA, doctoral programs, implementation of the Bologna process in Czech higher education system, accreditation commissions, rules of reform and self-governance of higher education institutions.

I would like to include in my report a number of issues that caught my attention:

1.     New viewpoint on education management, necessary knowledge and skills as well as experience of various institutions

2.     The role of different degrees, levels and methods used in QA at higher education institutions

3.     Implementation of curricula and its effect on QA in the educational process

It can be concluded that higher education institutions and leading authorities in the field operate with excellent education standards and norms on the basis of form and structure pursuant to the requirements of the Bologna process. The management of education systems is carried out online in order to ensure the transparency of the activity of higher education institutions as well as conduct monitoring and evaluation within universities. Other interesting issues include conducting internal and external evaluation, rating department staff and its mechanism. The work done to enhance the scientific potential of universities and improve their rankings can also be considered significant. Benefiting from international experience in order to comply with modern norms of education and participating at a variety of international projects serve to improve the reputation of higher education institutions.

There is an interesting mechanism of internal and external quality assurance at Palacky University. In accordance with the rules of procedure, there are special education programs in which calculation of credits and training mechanisms have been used. The support of the organizations established within the university can be considered to be crucial for conducting recruitment, the mechanism of self-evaluation of students and evaluation of them by teachers, information and training resources, student support, continuity of education and its completion as well as providing students with jobs.

There are certainly no elements of nationalism in education, but the issues of adapting national education systems to international ones, expanding local relationships as well as the relationships between universities and international organizations benefiting from different international programs, elaborating student exchange programs and instructing lessons in various foreign languages in order to increase the number of interntional students, are being studied.

I believe that quite a lot of regular international meetings are carried out on education management and quality assurance by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Inviting university authorities to such events is a significant step. I am very confident that these events aiming at the development of education in Azerbaijan, will help to determine the strategic goals of education in the country and the measures to be taken.

Dr. Vazeh Asgarov

Azerbaijan University of Languages

Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs