News

17 Sep
5th Project Steering Committee Meeting held

The 5th Project Steering Committee Meeting of the Twinning project 'Support to Strengthening the Higher Education System in Azerbaijan' was held on 13 September at the Ministry of Education.

From the MS side, the meeting was attended by Project Leaders from the three implementing partner organizations and by staff of the Science, Higher and  Secondary Professional Education Department, component leaders and a representative of the International Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Education from the side of BC.

Mr. Shahin Bayramov, BC Project Leader, who has recently been appointed Rector of the Mingachevir State University at the presidential order, was replaced at the meeting by Mr. Yagub Piriyev, acting head of the Higher Education Department. 

Mr. Piriyev welcomed the MS Project Leaders to the Ministry of Education on behalf of his Department.

He noted that the project has progressed as planned so far.

He particularly focused on revision of state standards selected as pilots within the project. He noted that the areas the study programmes of which will be revised by the Twinning experts were selected in line with the Strategic Road Map adopted in 2016.

The study programmes in Computer Sciences, Information Technology and Computer Engineering, which have also been identified as priority areas in the Strategy, have already been revised by the project experts in line with the EU best practices, Mr. Piriyev said.

He also noted that the study programmes already revised by the Twinning project will serve as a good experience for designing competence-based study programmes in the upcoming years. 

“We do our best to meet demands of our colleagues,” said Mr. Bruno Curvale, Senior Project Leader and Head of Higher Education Unit at the International Center for Pedagogical Studies (CIEP) of France.

“The project is trying to adapt to the situation. We have a real working atmosphere. We still have six months to go till the end of the project,” Mr. Curvale added.

We should also think about what will happen to the activities [carried by the Twinning project] after the project, the Senior PL noted.

“I would like to say that project goes on successfully and smoothly. I believe we will have good results in this project,” said Ms. Baiba Ramina, Project Leader from Latvia.

In her turn, Resident Twinning Advisor of the project Ms. Elizaveta Bydanova presented the results of the fifth quarter of the project implementation as per component.

“A total of 16 expert missions and 80 working days have been implemented in the fifth quarter. In the meantime, 56 expert missions and 179 expert days have been implemented since the start of the project,” RTA said.

“The next project quarter will be quite tense.”

“Participation of so many people in project activities helps us to have a common language,” said Mr. Giedrius Viliunas, Project Leader from Lithuania.

Later each of the component leaders from BC presented a brief of the activities carried out in their relevant components over the last quarter.

At the end the next Project Steering Committee Meeting was tentatively scheduled for the 27th of November 2019. 


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As part of their visit to Baku, the Project Leaders representing the MS parner countries met with Mr. Vilayat Valiyev, the newly appointed Rector of Azerbaijan Technical University, one of the pilot universities of the Twinning project. The Project Leaders received a warm welcome from the university management. The discussions with Mr. Valiyev focused on the activities carried out by the University within its participation in the Twinning projct and also future areas of cooperation with the project.