Activities

ERI SEE hereby re-announces the Vacancy for:

An assistant to the Director of the ERI SEE Secretariat

The assistant to the Director of the ERI SEE Secretariat assists the Director in everyday activities of the Secretariat, contributing to its regular and efficient functioning and leading to the realization of the tasks the Secretariat is responsible for.

The Announcement is open from 1st March – 22nd March 2018, and more information can be found in: ToR_assistant-final-re-announcement_final

On the 9th February 2018, the ERI SEE Governing Board members gathered for their 24th meeting, held in Belgrade.

The meeting served as the basis for the discussion and adoption of the relevant ERI SEE documents, such as Activity and Financial Reports for 2017; Work Programme and Financial Plan for 2018; Internal Rules and Procedures of the ERI SEE Secretariat; and other relevant issues among which updates on the most recent developments in the participating countries in the area of education and training, as well as the recent activities of ERI SEE partners and members of the Consultative Body (RCC, ETF and Austrian Federal Ministry of Education).

The next meeting is to be held in October/November 2018.

ERI SEE hereby announces the Vacancy for:

An assistant to the Director of the ERI SEE Secretariat

The assistant to the Director of the ERI SEE Secretariat assists the Director in everyday activities of the Secretariat, contributing to its regular and efficient functioning and leading to the realization of the tasks the Secretariat is responsible for.

More information: ToR_assistant-final-announcement

With the support of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, as the host country; joint efforts of other ERI SEE members – ministries of education of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Moldova, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, the ERI SEE Secretariat was officially established as an international organization with legal entity as of December 2017.

The Secretariat supports the ERI SEE Governing Board in taking actions facilitating and enhancing sustainable education reforms on national levels through regional and international cooperation. Furthermore, the joint vision among the ERI SEE member countries implies that ERI SEE Secretariat should profile itself on both implementation and coordination level i.e. as the project implementing organization, but at the same time continuing policy dialogue and promote mutual learning and exchange of experiences.

By formalising the Joint Education Reform Initiative of South East Europe (ERI SEE) – Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) Working Group on Recognition of Academic Qualifications (WG RAQ) the Western Balkans Six (WB6) have officially started its work on finding the model for automatic recognition of academic qualifications in the region. The 1st formal meeting of the WG RAQ took place in Belgrade on 15th December 2017.

The meeting participants, appointed representatives of the Ministries of Education of the WB6, agreed on the Working Group’s Terms of Reference and the Work Plan on Recognition of Academic Qualifications 2018-2019.

The joint WG RAQ will operate under the auspices of the RCC and ERI SEE Secretariat. The members of the WG RAQ will consist of representatives of the Ministries responsible for higher education and ENIC/NARIC centres. The Group agreed on the two-year work programme for coordinated regional actions to operationalise the actions of the Multi-Annual Action Plan (MAP) on the Regional Economic Area (REA) aimed at removing obstacles to the recognition of academic qualifications. It will also monitor and report on the progress on the implementation and results achieved nationally and regionally.

The meeting was relevant for reaching agreements on the operationalization of the Multiannual Action Plan on the Regional Economic Area (MAP), endorsed by the Prime Ministers of the Western Balkans Six under the Berlin Process, with the ultimate goal of achieving better integration of high-skilled professionals and academics into professional and research networks, the European Research Area and the European Higher Education Area, thus yielding significant benefits for the region of Western Balkans. To this end the MAP commits the economies to remove obstacles to mobility of highly qualified workforce, in particular through joint standards and procedures for automatic recognition of quality assured academic qualifications; and to remove obstacles to mobility of students, researchers and academics through joint policies, measures and instruments aimed at increasing academic and research mobility and cooperation.

The actions on the recognition of academic qualifications outlined in the MAP build on the priorities specified in the South East 2020 Strategy and the work carried out by ERI SEE as part of the ERI SEE Work Programme, as well as the work within the framework of the Bologna process and the relevant recommendations adopted by the Ministers responsible for Higher Education at the Bologna Ministerial Conference in May 2015 as outlined in the Yerevan Communique.

The joint Working Group on Recognition of Academic Qualifications will be responsible for preparing, monitoring and reporting on activities at national and regional levels to ensure the implementation of the MAP actions aimed at removing obstacles to the recognition of academic qualifications.

On 14^th December, RCC and ERI SEE jointly organized a Seminar on Recognition of Academic Qualifications, to address the Western Balkans Six focus on development of automatic recognition procedures of academic qualifications in the region and commitment to removing of obstacles.

The actions on the recognition of academic qualifications builds on the priorities outlined in the South East 2020 Strategy and the work carried out by ERI SEE as part of the ERI SEE Work Programme, as well as the work within the framework of the Bologna process and the relevant recommendations adopted by the Ministers of Education at the Bologna Ministerial Conference in May 2015 as outlined in the Yerevan Communique, and is stressed as a priority withing the Mobility pillar of the Multiannual Action Plan on the Regional Economic Area (MAP), endorsed by Prime ministers of the region.

The Seminar on Recognition of Academic Qualifications addressed the latest developments regarding recognition of academic qualifications in Europe, as well as current practices of recognition of academic qualifications in the Western Balkans. It emphasized the importance of the Lisbon Recognition Convention and the corresponding tools, such as Diploma Supplement, ECTS, Quality Assurance, Qualifications Framework etc., and enabled the presentations of existing challenges and progress. The Seminar’s participants also heard about European trends and context in recognition of academic qualifications, experiences and practices of existing systems of automatic recognition of academic qualifications in Benelux and Nordic regions, with participants from European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR),  Finnish National Agency for Education, Swedish Agency for Higher Education, and independent experts in this field, as well as institutional and student experiences in the Western Balkans.

It provided opportunities to discuss the recognition of academic qualifications from multiple perspectives of key regional stakeholders in the process, namely representatives of the Ministries of Education, ENIC/NARIC offices, higher education institutions and students.

The 2nd meeting of Regional Experts in Quality Assurance, organized by the ERI SEE and with the support of the KulturKontakt Austria, and hosted by the Croatian Centre for the External Evaluation of Education, was be held in Zagreb on the 8th November 2011.

The focus of the meeting was to create a platform for the regional experts in the field of quality assurance to learn from each other’s experiences, recognize common challenges and reflect on future joint activities aimed at improving the QA systems and aspects, this time with a particular focus on internal quality mechanism regulating high professional standards and integrity in institutions work, and accounting for transparency and quality of their activities. Therefore, the existing and potential internal quality assurance mechanisms were presented and discussed. For this purpose, the Finnish education experts from the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre were invited and presented their experienced in various models of internal quality mechanism, as well as their practices in the evaluation of institutions.

In addition, the participants were presented a model of the IT system that can assist in performing the tasks regarding various aspects of quality assurance, namely national examinations. Future regional activities were discussed. In the final part of the meeting, a study visit to the Croatian Centre for external evaluation of education was organized.

Next meeting of the network is planned for the first quarter of 2018.

On 25th May 2017 in Belgrade Education Reform Initiative of South Eastern Europe (ERI SEE) organized the meeting of experts in Quality Assurance in General Education, coming from the ERI SEE countries, namely from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia. The meeting was attended by the representatives of relevant national agencies in charge of education and evaluation, relevant ministries, and European Commission.

During the meeting, the participants presented the current situation in the quality-assurance-related aspects in their respective countries, so common understanding and screening of the state of art in the region was reached.

The meeting resulted in the exchange of recent developments in the area of QA in general education at the European level (through the work of the Eucation and Training 2020 Working Groups representative), comparison of QA aspects existing in the region and their understanding, discussion on the existing practices and agreement on the future steps to be taken.

The meeting was concluded by the definition of priority topics relevant for further regional cooperation in the field of QA, which are to be further dealt with in more detail in the next activities of the regional group of QA experts in general education.

Agenda of the meeting can be found here.