Online course, Questions & Answers session and workshops: how Algerian partners strengthened their competencies in governance and quality assurance.

ESAGOV project has just concluded a very important step in its lifetime, namely the strengthening of universities managers, academic and administrative staff involved in quality assurance process and institutional governance.

Following the online preparatory training webinars that took place in the Fall of 2020, 77 participants from the 12 Algerian universities partners followed during April and May 2021 the online course 'Quality assurance and Strategic plan: fundamental elements and comparative approaches'available on the UNIMED MOODLE platform. This online course was built after a careful analysis of Algerian needs, designed by Ca' Foscari university with the contribution of the 3 European partners (University of Paris 1, University of Rouen and University of Pavia). The course is based on 9 training modules composed by a manual presenting the key theoretical notions as well as further material (bibliographical references, additional resources, video pills made for the course) :

• Organizational conditions to start and manage an effective system of governance through the quality approach
• Evaluation models in the different strategic areas of governance
• Indicators and parameters for the assessment and evaluation of activities and services related to each strategic area
• University strategic project
• Stakeholders consultation and participation systems
• Classification of procedures and identification of personnel for accreditation and evaluation processes
• Quality communication / reporting channels and instruments
• Logics and methods for the development of an integrated info
• Internationalization of the university

After this unsynchronized training, an online Questions & Answers sessionhas been organized to give the opportunity to Algerian participants to interact with European trainers, to deepen the content of the course and to clarify certain doubts. This session has been organized after an institutional and collective self-assessment and evaluation made by Algerian participants.

Still under the umbrella of capacity building activities, three regional workshopshave been organized where around 60 participants could discuss sub-themes emerging from the online course, considered by the representatives of the universities as relevant for the Algerian university system.

The workshops were organized in blended modalities, face-to-face and virtual modality, respecting the university regional conference scheme:

• West / South Conference: Sidi Bel Abbes, USTO, El Oued, Ouargla and Ministry of Higher Education, workshop organized in presence at the University of Sidi Bel Abbès
• Conference in the Center: Algiers 1, Algiers 2, EPAU, Tizi Ouzou and Ministry of Higher Education: workshop organized in presence at the University Algiers 2
• Eastern Conference: Sétif 1, Sétif 2, Skikda, Bejaia: workshop organized in presence at the University of Sétif 2

Each conference discussed 2 key points of 3 modules of the online course with the purpose of recalling the current Algerian context, motivating the interest expressed for each point and formulating practical proposals for a possible integration into Algerian universities. The richness and intensity of the debates testify to the importance of the issues related to the university strategic plan and the quality assurance, which are also at the heart of the reform of the General orientation Law of Higher Education which is currently in progress in Algeria. The three webinars put in light all the internal collaborative work made by the partners and their involvement in the governance reform process.

Finally, a general restitution workshophas then been organized on the 15th of July in order to pool all the proposals made during the regional workshops and to discuss the next steps. Each regional rapporteur shared the results of debate and conclusions. During the webinar, the audience had the opportunity to add precisions and comments to enrich the respective proposal and rapports. The discussions revealed the shared understanding of Algerian participants on what could be done at national level for strengthening the governance and quality process within the universities.

After the summer break, ESAGOV partners will work on how to make these proposals effective and on the local trainings activities.

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