PRESS RELEASE
On 26 – 27 April 2017, a Peer Learning Activity on “Fine-tuning recognition processes: challenges, strategies, tools” was held in the Divani Palace Acropolis Hotel in Athens.
The PLA was one of a set of actions of the project GEAR (Greece Exploring Advanced Recognition in higher education). It was submitted under the Call for Proposals EACEA49/2015 of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission and was found eligible for co-funding (Key Action 3 “Support to the implementation of EHEA reforms.”. The project is being implemented by the Directorate General for Higher Education of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs of Greece with the State Scholarships Foundation and National Agency of Erasmus+ (IKY).
The participants of the PLA were, apart from the GEAR key staff team of the DG for Higher Education, IKY and Experts, HEIs representatives, the President of IKY and of the Hellenic NARIC, the Vice-Chair of HQA, representatives from the Flemish Community of Belgium, Cyprus, France, Georgia and Portugal, Bologna Experts, the President of the Hellenic ESN and incoming/outgoing students.
The main goal of the PLA was to present the findings of a thorough survey conducted by GEAR as far as recognition tools and mobility of students and personnel is concerned. The survey was carried out via an e-questionnaire addressed to all Greek HEIs, at institutional and department level. It also included an e-questionnaire filled in by a substantial sample of incoming and outgoing students and semi-structured interviews to a number of higher education stakeholders. An English version of the report of the findings is already uploaded on GEAR website while the Greek version will follow in a more extended version. The broad and dynamic discussion revolved around recognition tools, like ECTS and DS, the importance of re-designing curricula based on learning outcomes and the contemporary challenges in higher education, like the refugee issue and the importance of integration into higher education systems, distance learning and the digital era and student entrepreneurship. There were presentations of national good practices among EHEA members and national strategies around internationalisation and mobility enhancement.
The conclusions drawn will support the six in-situ workshops to follow within the period May – September in Greek HEIs according to the GEAR work programme.