On December 6-7, 2011 the Nazarbayev University hosted a seminar of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) on the topic «Establishing and developing quality assurance in Central Asia and Eastern Europe». The seminar was conducted at the initiative of ENQA and organized together with the Independent Kazakh Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (IQAA) and JSC Information-Analitic Center with the support of Nazarbayev University and Education Network Association «EdNet». The seminar was attended by the representatives of ministries and accreditation agencies from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The aim of the seminar is to maintain and develop the system of assuring the quality and procedures of accreditation in countries of the Central Asia and Eastern Europe in accordance with the Standards and Guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG).

The introductory part of the seminar was presented by the Vice-Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Professor Murat Orynkhanov. The topic on the new governmental strategy for accreditation of Kazakhstani universities in accordance with the Standards and Guidelines for quality assurance of higher education in the European Area, Professor Kalanova Sh.M. – Scientific Coordinator of the IQAA. Helka Kekäläinen, a Vice-President of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), presented the European standards and higlighted the need for the independence of agencies and cooperation with stakeholders, sustainability of procedures and decision-making process, quality and publication of reports on external evaluation of the university.

Professor Radu Mircea Damian (Romania, ARACIS), Helka Kekäläinen (Finland, FINHEEC), and Nataly Nikitenko (Kyrgyzstan, EdNet) shared experiences on the organization and development of agencies in different countries. As it turned out, the issues of the external quality assurance in higher education raised a great interest of participants in the seminar: they expressed their comments about the external assessment from the side of universities, asked questions concerning the accreditation of quality assurance agencies in education, forms of reporting, discussed approaches for assurance of the internal quality management of agencies. The Deputy Director of the ENQA Secretariat, Natali Lugano, summed up the results of the seminar and highlighted attention of participants to the next stages in the field of quality assurance in the field of quality assurance in the Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The participants of the seminar were awarded with the certificates on the participation in the seminar.

Below you can find the programme of the seminar and presentations of speakers in Russian and English languages:

1. Programme of the seminar "Establishing and developing quality assurance in Central Asia and Eastern Europe"

2. Sholpan Kalanova - New Governmental Strategy of Kazakh HEI’s Accreditation in Accordance with the ESG

3. Helka Kekäläinen - European Standards and Guidelines. The Independence of the QA Agencies and Collaboration with Stakeholders

4. Radu Mircea Damian - Consistency of External Quality Assurance

5. Radu Mircea Damian - Establishing a New Agency and Adopting the ESG – the Romanian Experience

6. Nathalie Lugano - IQA Procedures for Agencies and the IQA Project