University of Halabja participated in a four-day training workshop organized by the APPRAIS Project and hosted by the University of Sulaimani from the 13th to 16th of June, 2022.

The UoH representatives were Prof. Dr. Dana Abdullah Tahir, Vice-President for Higher Education and Scientific Affair, Dr. Ranjdar Muhammed Aziz, Vice-President for Student Affairs, Dr. Barzan Hadi Hama Kareem, the UoH head of Bologna Process committee, Mr. Aram Muhammad Amin Qadir, Head of Quality Assurance, and Mr. Muhammad Sa’dadin Hadi, Officer at UoH Directorate of Quality Assurance.

The training workshop agenda is as follows:

The first day was on “Strategic Planning for Higher Education” which was presented professor Marco Abate, vice-president for higher education at the University of Pisa. During the practical session, the participant universities were trained on preparing and drafting a strategic plan for their respective universities. The UoH and the University of Duhok collaboratively drafted a plan and presented it. Additionally on the first day, Assist Prof. Dr. Rezhen Harun Rashid briefly mentioned the steps taken in the last year for implementing the Bologna process as well as the obstacles that were in the way of it. At the end of the first day, Professor Soumodip Sarkar from the University of Evora in Portugal presented a session on “Strategic planning to enhance the societal role of university: third mission and entrepreneurship”.

The second day was on “Transition from Pre-Bologna to Bologna”. Prof. Maria Caston, Coordinator of international Affairs in the Mediterranean area from the University of Murcia in Spain presented a session on “Focus on workload, academic calendar, ECTS, recognitions of credits and all the questions related to the passage from pre-Bologna to Bologna era”. Additionally, a session on “How to define learning outcomes for a study programme and of a course” was presented by Professor Marco Abate, Vice-Rector for Teaching from the University of Pisa in Italy.

The third day was on “Internal Quality assurance for HE: Implementing the ESG” which was presented by Bjarne Skov, Senior Adviser of Internationalization from the University of Oslo. He tackled the mechanisms of Quality Assurance both theoretically and practically and the implementation of ESG.

The fourth day was on ““Roadmap for the Bologna process implementation” presented by Dulce Maria Caldeira, Service Support Cabinet (Academic Services) (Coordinator) from the University of Evora in Portugal. To further enrich the suggestion put forward during the partnership meeting in March, the universities’ representatives were required to practically write down the mechanisms of the implementation of Bologna Process.