2013 Press Releases
UCC strengthens ties with 7 universities
Closer ties and collaboration into the future is the outcome of a visit by a delegation of key universities from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, hosted by the QPU and led by Dr Marian McCarthy.
Through the Quality Promotion Unit (QPU), UCC plays a leading role in the EDUCA Tempus 1V project, ‘Modernisation and development of curricula on pedagogy and EDUcational management in the Central Asian countries’. This project is aimed at reforming and modernising the education system in the three participating Central Asian countries in line with the best practices of the European higher education area and is being led by Dr. Marian McCarthy, Co- Director Ionad Bairre (Teaching and Learning Centre), on behalf of QPU. The group was welcomed to U.C.C. by Dr. Bettie Higgs, Vice-president for Teaching and Learning (Interim) and Co-Director of Ionad Bairre.
The universities present included Tajik State Pedagogical, Tajikistan; Karaganda State University, Kazakhstan; Naryn State University, Kyrgyzstan; Kyrgyz State University, Kyrgyz Republic; Jazakh National Pedagogical University, Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakn National Pedagogical University, Kazakhstan.
The wider objective of the project is to contribute to reform of the training system through the introduction of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) and through the development of Educational Management Programmes at Master and PhD levels.
UCC’s involvement is on-going over the course of the project from 2012-2015. Dr McCarthy represented Dr Norma Ryan at the first meeting of the project at Magdeburg in November 2012 and again at the subsequent meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan in April 2013.
Dr McCarthy reflected on the magnitude of the visit:
“The EDUCA visit was highly successful. The visitors spent five days immersing themselves in the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), Learning Outcomes and Assessment, reviewing their curricula accordingly and involving themselves in the daily teaching and learning modules and activities of Ionad Bairre, the Teaching and Learning Centre in UCC. In return, we learned much about their ways of knowing and teaching and look forward to future collaborations with them."
“ECTS focuses on credit transfer and, therefore, on student mobility – so it is indeed possible that we will have students from these Central Asian universities in the future taking modules on our programmes, through Erasmus type exchanges, for example. Indeed, there are already students from Kazakhstan at UCC.”
A highlight on the social side was a visit to Youghal strand to see, smell and walk by the ocean. One of the participants had never seen the ocean before and it had been several years since two other colleagues had seen the sea, given the land-locked nature of their countries.
UCC will also be involved in the next meeting of the EDUCA project in Dushanbe, Tajikstan, in March 2014.