Session Information
11 SES 06 A, Quality of Higher Education Institutions
Paper Session
Contribution
The surge of the Pandemic has posed new challenges for the Higher Education Institutions in Armenia and the world at large. However, the rational analysis of the complexity of the situation suggests that the Pandemic should be perceived if not as a blessing in disguise then at least as a ruthless scalpel that bared the hemorrhaging areas in the Higher Education making the HEIs bring the concept of the transformation of the education to an urgent agenda.
The institution-level discussions on the aftermath of the hasty measures taken in the lockdown period of the predominantly online learning revealed a certain attitude-action gap pertaining to the awareness of the importance of ICT usage, on the one side, and actually the use of the ICT tools in the teaching process, on the other. The attempt to reduce the gap by using a ‘tinkering around the edges’ approach, when the lack of the digital skills of the teaching staff was supposed to be quick-fixed by short trainings, had not yielded the anticipated results. Only a new concept of long-term capacity-building could have led to the enhancement of L&T. Moreover, to dilute the complexity and create dynamics for true change the HEIs should have fostered sustainable professional development, acknowledgment and exchange of good practice, as well as encouragement of leadership among non-administrative staff.
Moreover, the exponential growth in unemployment, financial hardships created a major attitudinal shift in students as the most important stakeholders of the HEIs making them prioritize their employment. Consequently, students needed way more than just digitally savvy teachers and access to a rich bank of digital resources available in a smoothly operating learning platform. What they did require was a high-flex learning experience, as well as a perfect balance of disciplinary knowledge and a new set of inter-disciplinary, transversal competences that could potentially satisfy the existing and future needs of the labor market.
As for the third leg of the stool, i.e. the society as a stakeholder of the HEIs, the societal focus should have turned towards the opportunities that came with the online learning rather than some futile doomsaying on ‘the end of the quality education’ ubiquitous on social media.
A new realization came with the Hybrid learning. For the first time, the society sanctified the flexibility, that per se is in the crux of the Hybrid learning, and came to terms with the fact the Hybrid learning had come to stay and govern the educational processes.
At present the thesis that the human capital should be perceived as a prerequisite for the development of the country and that quality education is one of determining factors for the development of human capital, is being presented in the context of the preservation and reinvestment of human capital in the Republic of Armenia. To mitigate the disastrous ‘brain drain’ the HEIs should become the frontrunner of progress by following the suit of the top notch EHEA universities that have built impressive university research centers to engage the most talented students in research. The HEIs in the RA should also groom the most promising students to become academic successors or/and cofounders of spinoffs. The HEIs should disseminate the importance of generating entrepreneurial opportunities across their universities, as well as nurture a culture of establishing continuous relationship with successful entrepreneurs integrating them both in the educational processes and the support of the university research centers to generate university spinoffs which, on the one hand, will become a reliable source of finance, and on the other, will maintain the ties with the business world intact.
Method
The analysis of the outcomes of qualitative research on the quality enhancement of T&L, student-centeredness conducted by EUA, LOTUS has revealed that the HEIs need to develop viable mechanisms of reskilling and upskilling for the academic staff, as well as monitor the implementation processes to ensure sustainable improvement of L&T practices. On national level, to provide comprehensive quality education HEIs should take a conscious step towards trans-institutional cooperation. A propos, Yerevan State University in tandem with some universities, that have taken the path of internationalization, has started to disseminate the accumulated experience, good practice, embedded international approaches that have proved efficient with other HEIs of the RA. On institutional level, the reskilling and upskilling processes should include all the academic and administrative circles and be synchronized otherwise the mission of providing quality education will fail. Before the systemized all-encompassing implementation of the upskilling services at YSU, a few proactive representatives of the academic staff used to take intensive and very often expensive trainings delivered by highly accredited international organizations acting merely out of their personal enthusiasm and probably hoping to improve their career trajectories. However, their initiatives did not bring visible change in the overall quality of the education at YSU, because the newly acquired competences had a strictly localized implementation. The fossilized attitudes started to waver when several ERASMUS programs found their way to YSU and gradually became available for larger audiences. The significant change occurred first in the attitudes of YSU teaching staff and then in the enhancement of the quality of teaching as a result of the contextualized implementation of international best practice which was disseminated within the framework of such successful ERASMUS+ programs as PRINTeL project. The comprehensive survey of the university students on the efficacy of technologically advanced collaborative methods of learning, which supposed combinatorial implementation of CBL, PBL methods, ‘LIMEL-style’ online courses designed in accordance with the SMART principles and made in the premises of the cutting-edge studio for making educational videos, revealed that at least a good proportion of students approved the implementation of the active methods of learning aiming at developing students’ transversal, interdisciplinary, and green competences. As for the survey of the teaching staff who had received continuous trainings for improving their digital and methodological competences, the significant proportion of the participants were enthusiastic about the new repertoire of teaching tools and methods they had acquired through those TOTs.
Expected Outcomes
As a result of the synergy effect of the trans-institutional and trans-national collaboration, as well as open innovative initiatives of businesses and university research hubs universities will become a flagship of progress in the RA. Along with the external cooperation the HEIs should thrive for a balanced autonomy, which is reflected in the empowerment of developing, exploiting innovative approaches, conducting experimental research, adopting unbiased policies at the same time by being transparent and holding public accountability. In the era of human augmentation universities should redesign, enhance their educational services in a way that they will prepare specialists not only in compliance with the demands of nowadays’ labor market but also foresee the emergence of new domains, ergo new professions. To ensure an incremental improvement of education interdisciplinary approach should be implemented in L&T, that in its turn will suppose a reskilling of the teaching staff. Moreover, the HEIs should foster a policy of providing a lifelong upskilling of the academic scholars helping them also become digital scholars. At present the continuous development of domain-specific competences and generic ones has become a domineering trend. As for YSU the reskilling/upskilling of some of the competences have even become mandatory which fits in well with the core concept of people-centeredness that constitutes the right for quality education available for students, that is delivered by a dynamic teaching staff which are provided with the opportunity of honing their competences through lifelong professional development, for which they are rewarded, decently remunerated and why not promoted in their educational institutions.
References
1.https://oead.at/index.php?eID=dumpFile&t=f&f=27621&token=7f25cad3d5ee9e2199bd1de8ee0c91c050c7526e 2.THE 2021-2026 ACTION PLAN OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA, Annex No 1 to Decision of the Government of the Republic of Armenia, No 1902-L, 18 November 2021 3.Assessment of learning, in “Teaching in a Digital Age”, by Tony Bates 4.https://bit.ly/EvolvingDigitalScholar, by Wim Van Petegem, JP Bosman, Mine De Klerk, and Sonja Strydom, 2021 5.http://www.ehea.info/page-ministerial-conference-rome-2020 6.https://www.eua.eu/resources/publications/925:international-strategic-institutional-partnerships-and-the-european-universities-initiative.html, Survey EUA, April (2020), p. 26 7.https://www.eua.eu/downloads/content/academic%20freedom%20statement%20april%202019.pdf, joint statement by ALLEA, EUA and Science Europe, April 2019 8.https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=bce2ee9ab0&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-f:1719042576799850716&th=17db441d9fed60dc&view=att&disp=inline 9.https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=bce2ee9ab0&attid=0.2&permmsgid=msg-f:1719042576799850716&th=17db441d9fed60dc&view=att&disp=inline 10.Yeigh, T., Lynch, D. (2020). Is Online Teaching and Learning Here to Stay? Academia Letters, Article 24. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL24 11.https://www.researchgate.net/project/Incorporating-Blended-Learning-into-the-teaching-mix-and-investigating-teaching-effect-elements 12.http://bit.ly/PWENGV5 13.Chris Van Keer, em. Prof. KU Leuven EHEC-TAM - Cairo, December 2020 14.https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/research-topic/learning-and-skills 15.https://www.winginstitute.org/roadmap-for-success 16.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316148529_Teaching_and_Learning_in_Digital_World_Strategies_and_Issues_in_Higher_Education?enrichId=rgreqccbab8b404e881658eae9a10ad9474be-XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzMxNjE0ODUyOTtBUzo0ODM1MzUwMzYzOTE0MjRAMTQ5MjI5NTE0NDI5MQ%3D%3D&el=1_x_2&_esc=publicationCoverPdf 17.“Innovative and Technology-Enhanced Teaching and Learning”, Teacher’s Handbook, 2021. http://www.printel.am
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