What is ARMENQA about?
TEMPUS ARMENQA Implementation of National and Sectorial Qualifications Frameworks in Armenia is a three year national project. The wider objective is to enhance the employability of Armenian HEI`s graduates and facilitate the recognition of Armenian qualifications in the labor market nationally and internationally. As a result, it aims at the provision of coherency and relevance of the Armenian qualifications with the labor market and society demands, harmonization of the Armenian qualifications with those in EHEA, consistency of the national laws and regulations applying to education and training with ANQF goals.
Making Armenian National Qualifications Framework (ANQF) operational has currently become the most important issue of today’s Armenian HE system. It is envisaged to create and apply a methodological and legislative basis as well as practical tools for ANQF implementation at the national level. It will enable to align all HE qualifications in Armenia with the ANQF.
An inter-institutional Working Group (WG) will be established from academic and administrative staff of AM and EU partner institutions to create basis for ANQF implementation. The WG will develop the ANQF implementation strategy and action plan. The next task of the WG will be development of appropriate tools and transparent procedures for aligning the existing qualifications with and placing the new ones into the ANQF according to EU “Practical Guide to National Qualifications Frameworks”. For this purpose special procedures and ANQF Implementation Manual for HEIs, MoES, NICARM and other stakeholders will be elaborated and published. To ensure ANQF compatibility with European requirements it will be self-certified against QF-EHEA and referenced to EQF-LLL in according to Bologna “Criteria and Procedures for Verifying the Compatibility of Frameworks with the QF-EHEA”.All developed methodological and legislative documents and tools will be peer-reviewed by the project’s Quality Evaluation Committee (QEC).
Several trainings for the designated administrative and academic staff are envisaged to build the capacities of the relevant academic and administrative staff. A 3-day training in LiU will be organized where 36 administrative staff from HEIs, MoES, NICARM and other stakeholders would be trained in writing and evaluating LO based level and qualification descriptors that comply with the ANQF. Five separate training sessions with 3-days duration will be organized in Armenia (YSU, RAU, ASPU, YSUAC and ANAU) for 50 academic staff of HEIs (10 per subject area) in writing LO based qualification descriptors in Physics, Law, Education, Civil Engineering and Agriculture subject areas. The trainings will be carried out by EU partners in an interactive manner
Another objective of the Project is to raise MoES capacity in maintaining, periodic review and implementing the ANQF. For this end a special ANQF Committee within the MoES structure will be established. This Committee will consist of representatives of main stakeholders, i.e. MoES, HEIs, social partners, employers and student unions.
The next key task of the Project is the development of the national model and a methodological basis for the establishment of SQFs and piloting 5 SQFs in the selected subject areas. In order to create a national model for SQFs it is envisaged to undertake capacity building training in Germany for the designated academic and administrative staff and student representatives.
Based on the best EU practice the ANQF WG will develop the methodological basis and a national model for Armenian HE SQFs. This will provide a basis for the further development of SQFs in different subject specific areas. To achieve these 5 Work Teams (WTs) from abovementioned workshop participants will be setup in order to develop SQFs in Physics, Law, Education, Civil Engineering and Agriculture. To ensure that SQFs are applicable and meet the needs of HEIs and other stakeholders the HEIs will reference several selected programs in each subject area to the developed SQFs.
The next step of the project would be creating policies and guidance for LO based two-level curriculum development. Particularly, a multi-level LO based curriculum development Guide will be produced, published and disseminated among AM HEIs. The Guide will also include a common programme specification model with appropriate requirements for HE degree programmes in Armenia. To ensure multiplier effect each SQFs WTs’ member will organize one-day in-house workshops by training 15 academic staff members in his/her own university. Based on the results of the workshop and directed by the methodologies provided in the developed Guide the HEIs will develop LO based BA and MA sample curricula in the selected subject areas. The ANQF WG will also develop and provide to Armenian HEIs with the programme QA and compatibility-check tools and procedures, which will be approved by MoES for adoption at national level.