ShareAQU Catalunya participates in the National Public Policies Forum on Microcredentials
The Agency was represented at the event by the head of the Internationalisation and Knowledge Generation Area, Anna Prades, and the technician from the Quality Assessment Area Carme Edo.
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AQU Catalunya participated yesterday in the National Public Policies Forum on Microcredentials. The webinar, held yesterday and today, aims to create a space for informed exchange between governments, universities and other relevant stakeholders to strengthen decision-making in public policy on microcredentials, using a comparative approach. Through comparative analyses of regulatory frameworks, national agreements, promotion programmes and regulatory experiences related to microcredentials in different contexts, participants can improve decision-making in quality assurance in general and in microcredentials in particular.
Carme Edo, a technician in AQU Catalunya’s Quality Assessment Area, delivered a presentation focused on microcredentials from a forward-looking perspective, as well as on the support they receive from international institutions and their place within the Catalan university system. In this context, an initial external evaluation process has been established to facilitate the recognition of ECTS credits between universities. After outlining the legal framework, Edo focused on institutional strategies for offering microcredentials, as well as on the characteristics these must have in order to fall under the umbrella of institutions’ Internal Quality Assurance Systems (IQAS). The presentation concluded by highlighting the opportunities that microcredentials offer to the university system when they are integrated into existing structures and processes.
Anna Prades, head of the Internationalisation and Knowledge Generation Area, addressed microcredentials from an international perspective, first within the European framework and then in other regions beyond Europe. She presented microcredentials based on the approach taken by UNESCO and went on to compare their development within the European Union and the European Higher Education Area. Finally, she pointed out the barriers that these short-cycle qualifications still face.
The forum, organised by MicroRed across Spain, Argentina and Ecuador, was aimed at higher education authorities and government technical teams, university leaders and managers, teachers and researchers, students and consultants, among other stakeholders. It combined expert lectures, thematic panels featuring national and international contributors, specialist commentary and a final synthesis of the lessons learned from the forum, as well as the next steps of the MicroRed Project, which focuses on the design, implementation and validation of university microcredentials in Argentina and Ecuador across national, institutional and classroom levels.