The activities carried out in February are a continuation of the activities we have already started. February seems just like the shortest month in the year, but the Twinning project noted great success during the two workshops that were held.
In the period from 7th till 11th the second mission of the Activity 1.1.1 dedicated to review of the regulations applicable on the national level and in relation to the quality assurance procedures in higher education and VET was held online. The mission was agreed to be held through the Teams platform due to the increased number of infected people and some travel limitations of the experts. Foreign experts who were responsible to achieve the results of this mission wereVidmantasTutlys (Lithuania), Lina Vaitkutė (Lithiania) and SlavicaAlojzijaČernoša (Slovenia) sharing their know-how in the area of vocational education and training procedures, and IevaVaiciukevičienė (Lithuania), Ana Tecilazić (Croatia), AurelijaValeikienė (Lithuania) andMile Dželalija (Croatia) exchanging their experience and knowledge in the area of quality assurance procedures in higher education. The experts shared presentations on the system and applicable process of their own countries highlighting that there is no universal or best system, but best practices that can easily be adjusted to the national requirements. A presentation on ESG (The Standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area) pointing out the importance of implementation of standards and following the directions already defined within this document.
Representatives from VET Centre, Ministry of Education and Science-Department for secondary education, adult education and LLL, Adult Education Center, Bureau for development, Chamber of commerce,the Board for accreditation, Board for Evaluation, National Council for higher education and scientific and research activity, Universities staff as well as from higher education unit within the Ministry of education and science were actively involved in the discussions held in the HE breakout room.
The period from 28th of February till 04th of March was reserved for the first mission of the Activity 1.1.2. in order to review the existing/currently applied benchmarks for HE programmes in selected study fields while assessing their alignment with the Bologna Process requirements and the Standards and Guidelines for QA in the European HE Area. Experts representing both University sector and QA agency from Lithuania analysed the current state-of-play of the procedures in North Macedonia through actively involving relevant higher education stakeholders. Nora Skаburskienė, IevaVaiciukevičienė, Rasa Penkauskienė and DaivaLepaitė from Lithuania worked together with representatives from Universities staff responsible for the quality of the study programmes during a workshop that was held at the Faculty of agriculture sciences and food in Skopje.
Additionally, meetings with the Agency for quality assurance in higher education, as well as separate meetings with the members of the Board for accreditation and the Board for evaluation were held. One day of this one-week mission was dedicated to meeting the representatives from the National council for higher education and scientific and research activity considering as an umbrella organization of the aforementioned.
At the end of the two missions the experts prepared the mission report accordingly. The Reports containing concrete recommendations and proposals for improvement were then delivered to all the participants involved in the missions.