Skopje, 26 September 2023 (MIA) — With the support of the Education Reform Initiative of South Eastern Europe, the Ministry of Education and Science is hosting Tuesday in Skopje a conference on the quality of higher education in the Western Balkans.

Participants include education ministers from North Macedonia and Montenegro; education ministry representatives from Serbia and Lithuania; and over 80 representatives of other regional educational institutions and experts from the European Union.

They are discussing challenges in higher education in the region and ways to raise its competitiveness at the global level through strengthening regional ties and cooperation.

Education minister Jeton Shaqiri in his opening address said the conference was expected to result in conclusions that would guide policies to be created to improve the quality of higher education in the region.

"Education, including higher education, is a living thing that is changing all the time. It depends on many social and global factors, trends and movements, and we need to adapt our systems to the changes happening in all other spheres," Shaqiri said.

Although the country's higher education institutions are not ranked in the top 500 universities in the world, Shaqiri expressed his belief that state policies "will give the expected result in the medium and long term," because, he said, the Government and the Ministry of Education and Science were paying a lot of attention to the quality of higher education, especially in recent years.

According to European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education president Douglas Blackstock, educational quality assurance is a collaborative process.

"I am here not only to share good practices from other countries but also to hear experiences from the Western Balkans, to learn how the system works and to use this in my future work," he said.

European Quality Assurance Register director Magalie Soenen said that the network was the basis for cooperation between European higher education institutions and for the recognition of academic diplomas.

"We are working on the recognition of diplomas worldwide," she said.

Montenegro's Minister of Education Miomir Vojinovic said the quality of higher education was a reflection of the quality of society in general.

"This is an opportunity not only to exchange experiences but also to see how far the countries of the Western Balkans have made it toward our goal of reaching European standards in higher education," he said.

According to Dublin Institute of Technology professor Ellen Hazelkorn, the quality of education is a major indicator of national competitiveness and a key factor for future success.

"The necessary changes mean instilling a culture of quality in all your educational institutions and making changes in the way you design teaching and assess curricula in your institutions," she said.

Conference participants will visit Ss. Cyril and Methodius University and International Balkan University on Wednesday to discuss organizational change management. mr/