Tamar Makharashvili, First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Georgia, opened the annual international conference of the National Center for Quality Development in Education 2022, addressed the participants, and wished them success.

The First Deputy Minister focused on the ongoing reforms in the education system and the importance of the activities of the Education Quality Development Center in the process of their implementation.

Tamar Makharashvili noted that the Center, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science, higher education institutions, local and international education specialists and experts, constantly strives to improve the quality assurance processes of education, their openness and transparency.

Moreover, she noted that the current topics on which the Center is actively working with all stakeholders are important: the introduction of a cluster accreditation model, which means a substantial update of accreditation standards and procedures; Develop additional criteria and indicators for the evaluation of doctoral degree programs in order to evaluate doctoral programs more thoroughly and in depth; Increase the involvement of international experts in accreditation processes; Improving and developing corps of authorization and accreditation experts; Development of the field characteristics of medicine and others.

The first day of the three-day conference was devoted to issues of quality assurance in higher education, such as: promoting internal quality assurance at higher education institutions through external quality assurance, summarizing the results of 2021 quality assurance processes and future perspectives, the importance of clinical education Challenges, upgrading the field of medicine according to the standards of the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) 2020, the European Higher Education Area after the pandemic, etc.

The Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Georgia, Nunu Mitskevichi also addressed the participants of the conference, who spoke about the achievements and challenges in the development of the quality assurance system of higher education.

The conference was attended by representatives of the Centre’s international partner organizations: David Gordon, President of the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME), Goran Dakovich, Representative of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), Colin Tuck, Director of the European Higher Education Quality Assurance Register (EQAR), Michael Gabble, the Director of Higher Education Policy  at the European Universities Association (EUA), Alexander Hasgall, the President of Doctoral Education Council at European Students Union, (ESU) Representative Meral Nur, University of Arkansas Professor John Pijanowski, Prof. Local representatives of vocational and general education institutions, members of the Authorization, Accreditation, Appeals Boards, members of the Coordination Council of the Center, as well as authorization and accreditation Local and international experts, students, employers and other stakeholders.

The annual international conference of the National Center for Quality Development in Education is held online for three days. The second day of the conference, January 27, will focus on general education issues, whereas the third day will focus on vocational education.