The first Project Management Meeting of the Quality Assurance (QA) component of the project Enhancing quality of education and training in SEE – EQET SEE took place in Belgrade on 15 December 2021.

The meeting was attended by the representatives of the EQET SEE implementing partners from the seven participating economies: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, the Republic of North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia – national agencies for quality assurance in pre-tertiary education (general and VET education), European Training Foundation (ETF) as the EQET SEE strategic partner and the ERI SEE Secretariat project team.

The main goals of the first Project Management Meeting were to present the QA component of the EQET SEE project in more technical and operational terms: its activities and detailed timeline, contracting and reporting requirements, and to agree on the next steps.

The opening remarks at the meeting were given by Ms Tina Šarić, Director of the ERI SEE Secretariat and the EQET SEE Project Manager and Mr Mounir Baati, Senior Human Capital Development Expert for VET Quality Assurance at the European Training Foundation. Ms Milica Grahovac, Sector Project Coordinator presented activities in detail, as well as reporting obligations of the implementing partners and lead partner, which was followed by the discussion on organisation of work at the regional and national level, appointment of National Coordination Points (NCPs) and activities dynamics, guided by Ms Tina Šarić.

The Enhancing quality of education and training in SEE – EQET SEE project (October 2021 – September 2024) aims to contribute to the reduction of youth unemployment in SEE by supporting the development of labour-market oriented, socially inclusive and high-quality education.

The project of 2 million EUR total value is funded by the Austrian Development Agency with funds of Austrian Development Cooperation and co-funded by the ERI SEE.

The EQET SEE project has two strands: VET and QA.
The QA component of the project is focused on supporting external quality developments and quality culture at the school level and supporting internal quality developments at the quality assurance agencies with the goals of improving quality analysis and use of evidence from external evaluation for policy making, strengthening the quality culture at the school level and enhancing the quality of work of external evaluators in pre-tertiary education in the SEE region.

After the first joint project activity – Kick-off meeting in the beginning of 2022, the QA component will proceed to organisation of the regional meeting on policy vision, regional meeting for development of competence standard for external evaluators and training on data management and evidence-based policy making for policy makers and QA agencies management.

* This designation is without prejudice to positions on status and is in line with UNCSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.