Snowflakes are still falling on Baku streets, but the EHEA Twinning project is heading towards its final spring and summer. Fourteen out of twenty activities have been concluded, and the remaining expert missions have been agreed for 2017. There are still activities left for all components, but the focus will be on quality assurance. International evaluation groups will come to Azerbaijan to evaluate pilot universities in April. At the end of spring, their reports will be jointly evaluated with pilot universities. The project will present its final recommendations to the Ministry and higher education institutions in summer.

Over 550 experts from the Ministry, universities and other organisations have this far participated in the Twinning project training activities. Over 100 have taken part at least in three trainings and the most active in more than ten. In addition, Mr. Tofig Ahmadov and Mr. Elshan Nuriyev, ANO leading accreditation experts, made a two-week internship in Tallinn and Helsinki to observe Finnish and Estonian Evaluation Centres’ work.

In other words, critical mass of experts, who are aware of European standards and trained in quality assurance, is emerging in Azerbaijani higher education. It is a good basis for further development of Azerbaijani higher education.

 

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