Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Emma Sabzalieva
(York University)
M. Najeeb Shafiq (University of Pittsburgh)
Send message to Convenors
- Theme:
- EDU
- Location:
- Posvar 4217
- Start time:
- 28 October, 2018 at
Time zone: America/New_York
- Session slots:
- 1
Long Abstract:
Education prepares students for what someone imagines will be their future. When nations undergo dramatic political, economic, and social upheavals, as the Central Asian nations did upon achieving independence in 1991, multiple visions of the future are created, along with multiple ideas of what kind of education is needed to get to those futures, and multiple perspectives on how to assess the quality of that education.
Our three papers address the issues of visions of the future, desired educational outcomes, and who is involved in assessing them, from three vantage points.
Christopher Whitsel takes the broadest view, challenging prevailing models of educational stratification as resulting simply from supply and demand. Contrary to that model of stratification promoted by the World Bank and other organizations, Whitsel, based on his two decades of research on educational access in Tajikistan, develops a multi-level environmental model that better explains both access and educational outcomes. Looking particularly at the data on girls' schooling in Tajikistan, he finds that individual-level, household-level, community-level, and national-level factors interact in particular ways to affect educational outcomes.
Martha Merrill shifts the discussion to higher education and examines why two neighbors, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, make such different use of international program accreditation. As of May 2016, Kyrgyzstan (with 54 higher education institutions) had two programs with international accreditation and Kazakhstan (with 146 HEIs) had over 370. She finds that national-level choices and mandates account for what might seem to be institutional choices in assessing the quality of educational outcomes.
Chynarkul Ryskulova sharpens the perspective by investigating why university faculty in Kyrgyzstan are motivated to participate in the training needed to be members of the new independent accreditation teams that are beginning to evaluate programs in Kyrgyzstani universities. Through both a review of the five newly-created agencies and interviews with faculty, she reflects on faculty motivations and on changing conceptions of quality.
Thus both between and within three Central Asian countries, different visions of the future, with different actors and models, are leading to different concepts of quality in access and outcomes, and different ways of assessing the achievement of those new visons of the future.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Martha Merrill (Kent State University)
Paper long abstract:
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have substantially different approaches to international accreditation, leading to different results. As of May 2016, Kyrgyzstan (with 54 higher education institutions) had two programs with international accreditation and Kazakhstan (with 146 HEIs) had over 370. Both nations have internationally co-sponsored institutions, but this research considers the international accreditation of domestic universities.
Kyrgyzstan, although it can not become a member of the Bologna Process, has been implementing Bologna Process reforms since 2012 (Merrill and Ryskulova, 2012; Merrill, 2012) and is in the process of shifting from state attestation to independent accreditation (Merrill, 2016). However, concerns about corruption make attestation and accreditation suspect to some members of the public (DeYoung, 2011) and some educators (Ryskulova, 2017). Therefore, program administrators at a few universities seek international accreditation. Two programs partnered with German institutions and the German donor agency, GIZ, have been accredited by German agencies.
Business programs at two other universities are considering accreditation through the US-based organization, ACBSP, the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs, hoping to emphasize their quality in Kyrgyzstan's competitive higher education markets (personal communications, March and June, 2015). International accreditation does not involve interaction with the Ministry of Education or other government authorities; it reveals efforts of institutions to mark their distinctiveness and quality. However, the process is long and costly, and not well understood by many in the public.
Kazakhstan, on the other hand, has a government-sponsored vision of "Kazakhstan 2050" (Aitzhanova et al, 2014; State Program, 2010), emphasizing both "global and regional integration." As a member of the Bologna Process, Kazakhstan is committed to following the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (Standards, 2015). Accreditation by agencies accepted into the European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR) is valid in Kazakhstan. The 2011 Law on Education states: "Kazakh HEIs are encouraged to pass international specialised accreditation." (EACEA, 2015, p. 11) Eight agencies that are registered with EQAR currently operate in Kazakhstan (EQAR, n.d.), and non-European agencies are active as well. ASIIN (Germany) has accredited 173 programs at 12 universities in Kazakhstan. Another major player, ACQUIN, has accredited 126 programs at 14 Kazakh universities.
Membership in the European Higher Education Area plus government mandates and aspirations appear to drive the push toward international accreditation in Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstani higher education institutions, motivated only by their own desires and competitive instincts, are less able to staff and fund such international reviews.
Chris Whitsel (North Dakota State University)
Paper long abstract:
The prevailing models of educational stratification in the developing world view education in terms of supply and demand (Buchman and Hannum, 2001). Perhaps this is due to the majority of the research in the area being completed by the World Bank and other international organizations. My work in Tajikistan demonstrates that educational access and attainment may more closely model an environmental and/or nested model. To demonstrate this, I utilize data collected across several years about girls' education in Tajikistan. These demonstrate that there are individual-,household-, community-, and national-level factors that interact in particular ways to affect educational outcomes. Very little data point to outcomes being affected in ways that mirror the traditional model of supply and demand.
Chynarkul Ryskulova (American University of Central Asia)
Paper long abstract:
Currently, there are five independent accreditation agencies for quality assurance in education in Kyrgyzstan: Agency for Quality Assurance in Education "EdNet" (2017); the Accreditation Agency for Educational Programs and Organizations (AAEPO), (2017); Agency for Accreditation of Educational Organizations and Programs "Sapattuu Bilim" (2018); Independent Accreditation Agency "Bilim - Standart" (n.d.); Independent Accreditation Agency "El Baasy" (n.d). These newly established accreditation agencies train accreditation experts actively recruiting university faculty members for workshops on quality assessment system and criteria for accreditation, and award certificates of experts. Universities should not ignore potential contributions of professors to the improvement of the quality assessment system through participating in the accreditation process. However, it is not clear the motivations of faculty members to attend the workshops and to participate in the accreditation process taking into account their busy teaching schedule in several institutions at once, and the time - consuming nature of the accreditation process.
The purpose of the paper is to explore university faculty members' motivations to participate in the training of the accreditation agencies and their role in the new accreditation process from their own point of view. The paper will present the findings from the review of the policies and standards of the new independent accreditation agencies, and anticipated research in summer 2018, in Kyrgyzstan. I will interview 15-20 faculty members using semi-structured interviews in Kyrgyz and Russian languages at pedagogical programs that were evaluated by independent accreditation agencies to understand their experiences and role in the accreditation process.
The paper will address the following research questions:
• How do faculty members view their role in the accreditation process of pedagogical programs in state universities?
• How do the faculty members decide to attend or not to attend training on independent accreditation offered by the new accreditation agencies?
• What are the benefits for university faculty members from participation in the accreditation process from their point of view?
• To what extent do faculty members understand the purpose of a new independent accreditation?
The preliminary assumptions are (1) faculty members view participation in the accreditation process as a positive professional development aspect that might contribute to the improvement of the quality of education; (2) personal benefits: the certain recognition of their qualification in the academic community, and additional income; (3) the need and value of a formal certificate to get promotion.