ShareAQU Catalunya publishes the last quarterly Butlletí of the year
The 115th issue of the Butlletí (newsletter) deals with current issues such as the steps that are being taken towards the European degree and the publication of two new benchmarks.
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AQU Catalunya has published its last newsletter for 2024. Issue 115 begins with an editorial by the Agency's director, Jaume Valls Pasola, who reviews the latest developments that have been made with a view to the European degree. As he explains, 2030 seems to be the chosen date to deploy this single title modality. Until it is implemented, Valls points out, European university agencies will play a key role. One of the reasons that leads Europe to move towards this process is the needs of universities due to being part of the European context. "For many different reasons, a large majority of universities will seek to participate in some form of European alliance initiative and will want to offer some form of European degree,” he said.
The newsletter, which has been published since 1999 and has a quarterly frequency, also has an opinion article by the head of the Knowledge Generation and Internationalisation Department of AQU Catalunya, Anna Prades Nebot, who in the text elaborates in the II Global Study of the INQAAHE, which is an international network of quality assurance agencies in higher education of which she is director of the Executive Council. As she explains, the study aims to explore the latest trends in quality assurance at the international level in the three key terms of INQAAHE's International Standards and Guidelines, which are efficiency, relevance and the transforming power of quality.
Although the results of this research will be made public next year, Prades reveals some initial elements, such as the similarities in external assessment processes around the world, but also the differences. The study identifies "tensions between generalist and professional agencies in the United States" as well as "countries in conflict where quality assurance is still going on, against all odds", and also "the consolidation of national quality assurance systems in Latin America".
AQU Catalunya news
The newsletter also includes two articles on the Agency's own current affairs. The first is written by Teresa Pitarch Jovani and Esther Adot Giménez, project managers of the AQU Catalunya Quality Assurance Department, and focuses on the two most recent benchmarks published by AQU Catalunya: the Bachelor's Degree in Biosciences and the Bachelor's Degree in Philology and Language Studies. As stated in the article, “the benchmarks establish a common language for all Catalan Higher Education System stakeholders that allows recognition of what is expected of degrees in a specific field”.
The second article on AQU Catalunya's own projects is written by the project manager of the Internationalization and Knowledge Generation Department, Sandra Nieto Viramontes. Based on the Employment and university training in Law degree programmes report, the text addresses the need to train law students in digital skills and artificial intelligence, among other issues, since according to this report these will be the most important skills to acquire in the immediate future.
You can read Newsletter 115 here You can retrieve previous newsletters published by AQU Catalunya here.