On the 25th and 26th of February Guglielmo Marconi University hosted the KUTEL “Kazakh Universities to foster quality assurance processes in Technology Enhanced Learning” kick-off meeting. The Project Consortium brings together 14 organisations, 4 are from European countries - Italy, Bulgaria, Finland and Greece – and 10 are from Kazakhstan. The Kazakh organisations involved are 7 Universities from different areas of the country, the Ministry of Science and Education, an Accreditation Agency and a Public Foundation.
The project kick-off meeting was launched by the Guglielmo Marconi University pro-Rector Giovanni Briganti who personally welcomed the 40 delegates coming from the partners’ institutions. This meeting was an opportunity for the partners to know each other, starting to build cooperative links and explaining the main steps forward in terms of activities to implement and of financial and administrative rules.
Our aims and objectives
KUTEL addresses the main topic of Quality Assurance (QA) Processes and Mechanisms in Higher Education (HE), which is a national priority in Kazakhstan. Our project is aimed at improving the quality and relevance of technology-enhanced learning (TeL) at Kazakhstan higher education institutions, and to enable their easier inclusion into European Higher Education Area. The main project objective is to improve, develop and implement accreditation standards, guidelines and procedures for quality assurance of TeL courses and study programs at a national level.
How are we going to do it?
Project aims and objectives will be achieved, firstly, with a definition of European TEL Roadmap for QA standard built up on the base of the national best practices collected in each EU country involved in the project. Secondly, through the identification of the Baseline Kazakhstan TEL Quality Assurance Framework and the Recommendations KUTEL Quality Assurance Framework to be drawn up on the base of collected data and analysis of the existing situation in Kazakhstan, thanks to the support of the Ministry of Education, universities, accreditation centers and information technology centers in the partnership. The impact and the effective change is ensured by the KUTEL training which ensures consolidated professional skills on QA of academic staff, modernisation of educational processes and training of authorities responsible for HE accreditation/evaluation. The training will enhance staff competences for the improvement of EU/KZ standardized quality assurance system, defining national standards for TEL taking into account quality references and guideline shared with Ministry of Education and Science as well as the Higher Education Institutions and Accreditation organizations. New standards developed within our project will be embedded in the quality of TEL courses offered by HEIs in Kazakhstan, and then into existing regulatory documents at both institutional and national levels.
Next steps
The first steps of KUTEL project deal with the Baseline research, all the partners are collecting data on QA procedures in TeL courses both at institutional and national level ; this will result in 4 project deliverables that will constitute the foundation for the creation of the KUTEL course that will be delivered in the second half of next year.
