News

The first meeting of the Management Board of the project "Education and Employment" funded by the European Union was held on April 14, 2021. through the Zoom Internet platform and it brought together representatives of various institutions from all levels of education.

The Agency was represented by the Head of the Department for Quality Assurance and International Cooperation, Duska Radmanovic, who is also a member of the Project Management Board.

The meeting discussed the Rules of Procedure of the Management Board, especially in the part concerning membership and voting rights in the Management Board, since there is a difference between the project task which envisages membership in the Management Board only for representatives of ministries responsible for education, while in the realization of the project the Management Board was expanded with members representing agencies from different levels of government.

Director of the Agency for Higher Education of the Republic of Srpska (AHERS) Biljana Vojvodic and Director of the Association for Evaluation and Accreditation of Teacher Education Programs from Turkey Cemil Öztürk signed a Memorandum of Cooperation between the two agencies.

The memorandum stipulates that the agencies cooperate for mutual benefit and work on improving regulations and quality assurance in their jurisdiction and improving the quality of higher education in both countries. Cooperation in the field of information exchange, development of employee competencies, and exchange of experts and reviewers is also envisaged.

AHERS and EPDAD held two meetings within the staff exchange program between the two agencies in February and March 2021, and will continue with mutual cooperation within which it is planned to monitor the implementation of virtual visits to higher education institutions within the quality assurance process organized by each side.

The staff exchange program between AHERS and EPDAD is carried out within the exchange program of the Central and Eastern European Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (CEENQA), which has been running since 2018.

Organized by the Agency for Higher Education of the Republic of Srpska on March 30, 2021, the first meeting within the project Ranking of Higher Education Institutions of the Republic of Srpska was held and the project team for ranking was formed, consisting of: prof. Darko Petkovic, PhD, University of Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, team leader, prof. Pero Sipka, PhD, Center for Evaluation in Education and Science, Serbia, team member, prof. Mile Dzelalija, PhD, University of Split, team member, and prof. Tadeja Jere Jakulin, PhD, University of Primorska, Slovenia, team member. The work plan of the project team was adopted at the meeting and the realization of project activities in the following period was discussed.

The Head of the Department for Quality Assurance and International Cooperation, Duska Radmanovic held a meeting with the UNESCO research team consisting of Sanel Huskic from the University of Sarajevo and Sinisa Lakic from the University of Banja Luka on the topic of quality of distance teaching in higher education.

The UNESCO Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with UNICEF, ILO and UN Volunteers in B&H, is implementing the project "Creating better education for children during and after the COVID-19 crisis, with a focus on the most vulnerable", which includes two studies "Quality of e-teaching at universities ”and“ Needs of lecturers in the implementation of e-teaching at universities ”. For the purposes of conducting this research, the UNESCO research team is in the process of collecting primary data for the studies. The purpose of this activity is to analyze the state and quality of e-learning in higher education institutions, which will serve as a basis for planning support activities for institutions in charge of higher education.

Radmanovic presented to her interlocutors the results of the thematic analysis of distance teaching in higher education during the extraordinary circumstances, which was prepared by the Agency for Higher Education of the Republic of Srpska in the previous period, and which is publicly available on the Agency's website.

During the preparation for data collection, the research team noticed that the mentioned thematic analysis of the Agency is the only document that deals with the analysis of distance learning in B&H, not only in the field of higher education, but also when it comes to all levels of education.