Azerbaijan HEIs are highly heterogeneous in terms of the structure of being public and private. The need for strategy development with regard to quality assurance is among all other common problems for both type of the universities. Traditional system of quality assurance in HEIs of Azerbaijan has 2 main directions: control of student’s knowledge on institutional level and control from the Ministry of Education or other relevant authority based on academic aspects. Most of the universities don't have Internal Quality Assurance System in terms of administration and effective control of the processes. Some of the universities have the Quality Assurance Centers but they are not functional or the functions are not appropriated with the common standards. First of all there is a lack of training of the staff involved, the low profile of QA culture and the low level of communication between the QA structures and the academic staff involved. Even though Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan have several attemps to increase the Quality Assurance System of the universities to the international level, but the universities didn't absorbed the importance of these attemps. Taking into account the backwardness in this field, especially in the regions of Azerbaijan, this project is planned by BBU to contribute to the improvement of the situation.Considering all of these issues them overall aims of the project is to enhance the quality of higher education in Azerbaijan and to promote voluntary union with EU developments, to develope a model of principles, priorities, guidelines and procedures to improve and assess the quality.
Up to 2015 Traditional system of quality assurance in HEIs of Azerbaijan has 2 main directions: The control of student’s knowledge on institutional level and control from the Ministry of Education or other relevant authority based on academic aspects. Most of the universities didn't have Internal Quality Assurance System in terms of administration and effective control of the processes. Some of the universities had the Quality Assurance Centers but they were not functional or the functions were not appropriated with the international standards. The most important thing, there were no demand for Internal Quality Assurance in HEIs on national level. Even though the universities had to be accredited every 5 years, but the external quality assurance was not aligned with international standards as well. It was somehow was similar with giving the license for providing services with appropriate equipment. The universities were seriously lacking of low level performance management, quality of the programs, quality of the staff and most important the QUALITY CULTURE. Therefor EQAC project aimed to enhance the quality of higher education in Azerbaijan and to promote voluntary union with EU developments and to develop a model of principles, priorities, guidelines and procedures to improve and assess the quality.The specific objectives of the project were:•Make a comparative analysis of current QA practices (and identify the needs of the universities) •To increase awareness on modern quality assurance tools and policies •To develop framework for quality assurance mechanisms in Azerbaijan higher education institutions. •To develop and establish common Quality Assurance System – (in line with ESG) •To create online platform and user service charter•To enhance Quality Assurance Culture•To train quality assurance related administrative and academic staff• Develop a Model of Principles, Priorities, Guidelines and Procedures for internal management of QA for partner HEIs 8 Work packages implemented In order to reach these objectives WP 1: Scoping and Analysis of Quality Assurance in Azerbaijan UniversitiesWP-2: Creation of a framework for the QA implementationWP-3: System-building: Shaping systems of quality assurance in AZ universities.WP-4: Field tripsWP-5: Preparing Guidelines and Standards for QA at institutional levelWP-6: Quality AssuranceWP-7: Dissemination of the projectWP-8: Management