European, Global and Intercultural Dimension in Curriculum Development

Albania became a full member of the EQF Advisory Group in October 2015, and participation in all main meetings has been regular, demonstrating the country’s commitment to prepare for implementation of the EQF Recommendations.

ETF supports the taskforce of the Albanian Qualifications Framework (AQF) in preparing and carrying out the Albanian EQF referencing process. This cooperation includes advice, analysis and support to stakeholders’ dialogue throughout the EQF referencing process. The referencing roadmap (2016-2017) will include a series of workshops (2-days), starting with a kick-off workshop in Dürres on 8 and 9 September 2016.

Albanian Higher Education Institutions have continued implementation of the ongoing project of Tempus, Erasmus Mundus and Jean Monnet Programmes.

Albania dedicated a special attention to the engagement in the working groups, organisms and EU project to enable the exchange of European best practices and those of EHEA countries in the higher education reform. Such engagements of Albania include the engagement in WG ET303 for Modernization e Higher Education, BFUG. Their participation has re-established the contacts enabling the participation of Albania in Eurostudent VI and the country’s membership in EQAR as a governmental membership.

Partnerships and Networks

For assessment and certification of quality of higher education institutions in Albania, on 29.03.2016 an agreement between the Ministry of Education of Albania and the Quality Assurance Agency of Great Britain was signed. The aim of this agreement is to conduct assessment and certification of quality in a total and integrated manner and based on the same standards and procedures of all higher education institutions (public and private) that exercise their activity in Albania, oriented on the best European and international practices. The accreditation process is predicted to end in October 2017. This process will take place in several phases including: preliminary preparation of documents and guidance’s for higher education institutions, selection and training of British experts for external assessment, internal assessment by higher education institutions, assessment based on documents and during the visits in higher education institutions, drafting of preliminary and final external assessment reports and their handling for decision-making at Accreditation Council. Cooperation with QAA will assist National Agency for Accreditation of Higher Education (NAAHE) to consolidate the procedures and key documents for accreditation of programmes and higher education institution. In this framework, the QAA assistance will be of extreme importance since it will serve for the drafting of a large range of documents and will provide expertize for the drafting of the Quality Code in Higher Education. The consolidation of the processes and documents within the framework of accreditation will be a positive support for NAAHE within the framework of its membership in ENQAA.