General Assemblies and Workshops

On 13 October 2021, CEENQA’s yearly General Assembly and the accompanying workshop took place.

During the General Assembly, Olgun Cicek (YÖDAK, Northern Cyprus) was elected CEENQA’s new Vice-President. Simona Lache (ARACIS, Romania) and Benjamin Muhamedbegovic (HEA, Bosnia and Herzegovina) were elected new board members.

The workshop on “Online evaluations and external quality assurance” dealt with the changes to evaluation procedures brought along by the pandemic. Based on the experiences of the agencies in various European countries, it was discussed what lessons have been learned, what can be improved to adapt to changed circumstances and how quality assurance procedures will be conducted in the future.

You can find the presentations of the workshop here:
Anca Prisacariu: Adapting external quality assurance processes to an online format
Nataliia Stukalo: QA in pandemic times: Lessons learnt by NAQA (Ukraine)
Klemen Subic: CEENQA Guidelines for distance evaluation
Jolanta Silka: The importance of feedback and communication on the online evaluations

The annual meetings of CEENQA this year took place on 17 July 2020. Due to the ongoing pandemic and for the first time in the history of CEENQA, these meetings were held as a web conference.

23 member agencies participated in the General Assembly and discussed CEENQA’s activities during the past year as well as the network’s plans for the future. Two new member agencies joined CEENQA – NAQA from Ukraine and ECBE from Belgium, which means that CEENQA now consists of an unprecedented 41 agencies from 26 countries!

The member agencies re-elected Franci Demsar (NAKVIS), Jolanta Silka (AIKA/AIC) and Stefan Handke (ACQUIN) for a second term on the CEENQA board, while Ibrahim Durak from TEPDAD was elected as a new board member. Franci Demsar (NAKVIS) was elected CEENQA president for a two year term.

The GA thanked the outgoing CEENQA president Cristina Ghitulica for her dedicated work during her presidency and her successful efforts in promoting the network and its vision.

During the workshop, Galina Motova (NCPA) presented the results of a survey on the influence of COVID-19 on quality assurance agencies. Afterwards, the participating agencies discussed the latest developments, activities and events in their agencies and shared their experiences and best practices regarding the challenges imposed by the ongoing pandemic.

In March, the CEENQA board decided to postpone the 2020 General Assembly and Workshop until further notice, hoping to be able to conduct a face-to-face meeting at a later date. In light of the ongoing pandemic and continuing travel restrictions, the CEENQA General Assembly will now be held as a web conference on July 17 and will include a short workshop on the challenges related to the COVID-19 Pandemic and their impact on quality assurance agencies.

Participants can register for the General Assembly and Workshop now. Please contact the Secretary General for more details.

Due to the coronavirus the CEENQA GA and Workshop will not take place on 14-15 May 2020 as was previously scheduled.

Effective from 10.03.2020 until further notice, all events with international participation are cancelled by a general directive for state administration in the Czech Republic. This is a pre-emptive measure to contain the virus and prevent its spread. It is not known for how long this measure will be in place but it disallows taking any further steps in the event´s planning and organization at the moment.

Considering this and the rapidly changing developments regarding the coronavirus in Europe, the CEENQA Board has unanimously decided to postpone the GA and Workshop to fall 2020. The Board will monitor the situation in Europe closely and communicate details about the postponed event as soon as circumstances allow.

CEENQA apologizes for the inconvenience and hopes to hold a successful meeting later this year.

The next annual CEENQA Workshop and General Assembly will be held on 14-15 May 2020 in Prague. The event is kindly hosted by CEENQA member NAB.

The details of the event follow shortly.