More information on the Annual Conference here

Read the Report of the Annual Conference here

The European Youth Week 2013 started earlier this week, Monday 27 May and is highlighting the achievements of the Youth in Action programme. Lasting until Sunday 2 June 2013, the sixth edition of the European Youth Week will focus centrally on the active citizenship of young people, particularly the participation of young people in society in the 2014 European Parliament elections. Our colleagues of the European Youth Forum (YFJ) are also celebrating the European Youth Week through the YO! Fest.

YO! Fest mobilises youth organisations, civil society partners as well as thousands of young people for re-launching European democracy through the ‘League of Young Voters’ campaign ahead of the European Parliament elections. Debates, workshops, concerts and a European Citizens Picnic hosted by Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council, will await all those taking part.

More information on the European Youth Week on the Commission website here

More information on the European Youth Forum (YFJ) here and on the YFJ activities for the European Youth Week here

More information on YO! Fest here

The European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) will organise its Open and Flexible Higher Education Conference 2013, on 24-25 October in Paris (France). It will be titled ‘Transition to open and on-line education in European universities’.

This year’s scope of the Open and Flexible education conference is about ‘Transition to open and on-line education in European universities‘.

1.  This concerns topics directly related to:National and institutional aspects of opening up education

2.  Institutional models for online or blended course and curriculum development and delivery

3.  Innovations in technology enhanced learning, innovating pedagogies

4.  Quality assurance in online and distance learning

It will be organised by EADTU and hosted by the ‘Fédération Interuniversitaire de l’Enseignement à Distance, France’ (FIED), with the support of the French Ministry of Education and Research. Registrations are now open.

EADTU has made available pre-conference Master classes, including on the role of MOOCs in higher education, and on E-xcellence: quality assurance in e-learning

More information on EADTU on their website here

More information on the Open and Flexible Higher Education Conference 2013 here

The ministerial Conference was dedicated to the topics of governance and quality education. It highlighted the contemporary challenges in the implementation of governance and quality standards based on the vision of the Council of Europe.

Photograph Council of Europe 24th Standing Conference of Ministers of Education, 26th April, Helsinki, Finlandia Hall, Family Portrait, with EURASHE’s President Prof. Andreas G. Orphanides (third from the right top row) – Mikko Käkelä ©

This 24th Session provided ministers with the opportunity to focus on the roles and responsibilities of public authorities and gain knowledge and share effective results of policies, local contribution and international co-operation in ensuring good governance and quality education for all.

EURASHE’s contribution in the debates concentrated on the importance of quality assurance for all higher education providers in Europe. This is highlighted by the inclusion in the final declaration of an amendment proposed by EURASHE (in bold) to paragraph 20.3:

“Wish the above measures to lead principally to: [...]

developing our education systems as a public good with access to quality education for all pupils and students, adapted to their needs as appropriate, and ensuring that public responsibility for higher education, including provision for quality assurance, extends to private providers thereby guaranteeing that students can fully participate in higher education.”

Moreover, EURASHE also participated in the debates in both plenary sessions. Firstly on ‘Governance and Quality Education’ highlighting the important involvement of stakeholders with a speech by EURASHE’s President (here). Secondly on ‘Ensuring Quality Education’ with a message on the important basis that are the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG) with a second speech by EURASHE’s President (here).

View the programme, the final declaration, the participants’ list and the press release following the conclusion of the ministerial Conference.

View the speech of the President of EURASHE on ‘Governance and Quality Education’ and on ‘Ensuring Quality Education’

More on the page of the Council of Europe here

More photographs by Mikko Käkelä here

]]> http://eurashe.eu/blog/2013/05/21/eurashe-contributes-to-coes-24th-standing-conference-of-ministers-of-education-26-27-april-2013/feed/ 0 http://eurashe.eu/blog/2013/05/13/eurashe-re-elects-president-and-vice-president-in-split/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eurashe-re-elects-president-and-vice-president-in-split http://eurashe.eu/blog/2013/05/13/eurashe-re-elects-president-and-vice-president-in-split/#comments Mon, 13 May 2013 10:14:55 +0000 EURASHE Secretariat http://eurashe.eu/?p=8012 Continue reading →]]> During EURASHE’s 2013 General Assembly held on 8 May 2013 in Split (Croatia), Prof. Andreas G. Orphanides, Rector of European University Cyprus (EUC) (Cyprus) was re-elected President of EURASHE for a 2-year term.

Michal Karpíšek, Executive Officer of the Czech Association of Schools of Professional Higher Education (CASPHE) (Czech Republic) was also re-elected Vice-President of EURASHE for a 2-year term.

More on the organisation of EURASHE here.

Contributions, speeches, presentations, photographs of the Conference are available here

Photographs kindly provided by the Touristic Office of Split – www.visitsplit.com

EURASHE is represented in the Group by Sandra Kraze, BA School of Business & Finance (Latvia), member of the Council of EURASHE. Sandra Kraze is a Bologna Expert for Latvia and was member of the drafting group of ECTS Users’ Guide in  2009.

EURASHE is also contributing through Sylvie Bonichon, La Providence Institution (France) as an external RPL expert. Sylvie Bonichon is a Bologna Expert for France.

Specifically the Group is tasked with preparing a revised version of the ECTS Users’ Guide by mid-2014, by reflecting on policy development and implementation in the area of ECTS and learning outcomes since the previous revision of the ECTS Users’ Guide in 2009, giving consideration to issues such as the following (and including in its scope further issues to be identified in consultation with the Working Group and external experts):

•  Linking ECTS better with student workload and learning outcomes

 
•  ECTS in short-cycle provision, in 1^st and 2^nd cycle programmes of different length and in 3^rd cycle

 
•  Including the attainment of learning outcomes in assessment procedures

 
•  Reflecting the developments in the area of the recognition of prior learning and with relation to the new EU Directive on Professional Qualifications

 
•  Reflecting on the use of the Grading table in Annex 3 of the current ECTS Users’ Guide

The first meeting of the Ad-hoc WG on the revision of the ECTS Users’ Guide was held on 25 February 2013 in Brussels, Belgium. The meeting was chaired by the European Commission and hosted 19 participants.

More information is available on the dedicated website here.

More on the first meeting of the Group here.

Through a mix of plenary and parallel sessions, the 2013 edition of EQAF, entitled “Working together to take quality forward”, will combine practice-oriented or research-based discussions that will take place in the paper sessions and workshops with presentations of current developments in quality assurance. This year the Forum will specifically explore how both individuals and organisations can better understand the role that quality assurance can play in their daily lives, get engaged and work together to take quality forward.

The Forum organisers, ENQA, ESU, EUA and EURASHE, have now opened a call for contributions from QA practitioners in higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies, students, institutional leaders and researchers in the field. Two types of contributions are sought: papers and workshops.

The deadline to submit contributions is 2 August 2013.

View the call for contribution here.

View the submission form for papers here, and for workshops here.

Further information on the event, including the programme and registration information will become available in summer 2013.

Guidance services at university are generally focused on access (learning guidance), and exit (placement, career services). Support for students during their studies is less well-addressed, or not addressed at all. However, most students dropping out from university, point to the need for continuous support during the study lifecycle. This is particularly the case for distance students, given the fact that support services are often available only at the universities’ premises.

STAY IN therefore seeks to design and develop a service capable of supporting students in higher education during their academic career, by offering guidance and e-guidance to access available and prospective opportunities within the universities and in the communities where the universities are active. Guidance is conceived of as personalised support for each student to tackle potential obstacles that lead to disengagement and drop-out.

The STAY IN Consortium includes three universities (University of Macerata, Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Universidad de Sevilla), international research and consultancy companies (MELIUS, ARCOLA Research), an educational software developer company (LYNX), and two international educational networks (European Students Union and European Distance and E-Learning Network).

More information is available on the STAY IN website here.

Join the lifelong learning community to debate on key issues related to transversal competences following the European Commission’s strategy on “Rethinking Education”. In a very complex and ever-changing environment, Europeans must not only have and update specific job-related skills but also possess the transversal competences that will enable them to manage change and become lifelong learners.

In view of the upcoming Lithuanian EU Presidency this event will give an opportunity to push forward some key messages from civil society representatives from all around Europe.

More information is available on EUCIS-LLL’s website here.