On April 4th, 2024, the third National Conference on Quality Assurance in Vocational Education was held in Zagreb, organized by the Agency for Vocational Education and Training and Adult Education (AVETAE).
The National Conference on Quality Assurance is conducted as part of the Erasmus+ project EQAVET NRP HR – Support to the National Reference Point for the European Quality Assurance System in Vocational Education and Training. The project aims to develop and improve methodology and tools for quality assurance in the vocational education system, align quality assurance processes with the EQAVET framework, and empower vocational schools to achieve a culture of quality.
The conference brought together 140 participants from various parts of Croatia, including representatives of vocational schools, the Agency, the Ministry of Science and Education, and the Agency for Mobility and EU Programs.
During the introductory part of the conference, Mile Živčić, the director of the Agency for Vocational Education and Training and Adult Education, addressed the participants, followed by Vesna Šerepac, the director of the Education and Training Directorate at the Ministry of Science and Education, who officially opened the event.
In the plenary session of the conference, topics related to quality assurance were presented. Roosi Nemliher from Estonia, the head of studies at the Tartu Art School, provided an international perspective on quality assurance, focusing on experiences from Estonia in developing internal quality assurance and external evaluation.
Perspectives on national-level development in quality assurance were presented by Vesna Anđelić, assistant director for vocational education development, who discussed curriculum development in vocational education institutions for internal quality assurance. Blaženka Pul from the Electrotechnical and Traffic School Osijek and Silvija Grgić, an external evaluator, discussed internal quality assurance and external evaluation in adult education.
Additionally, three workshops related to the quality cycle were organized as part of the conference. The first workshop, titled “Planning the Self-Evaluation Process”, was conducted by Tamara Hudolin from the Agency, focusing on planning the process, developing an implementation plan, and the role of self-evaluation coordinators. The second workshop, titled “Implementing the Self-Evaluation Process”, was led by Željka Kamenov, PhD and focused on methods for gathering stakeholder feedback. The third workshop, titled “Self-Evaluation Results and Improvement Planning”, was conducted by Margareta Jelić, PhD and focused on defining improvement goals based on self-evaluation results.
In the closing part of the conference, participants expressed satisfaction with the workshops and their participation. They found the workshops useful in practical terms, particularly for strengthening personal and institutional capacities in implementing self-evaluation processes, and confirmed the need for future conferences as essential platforms for exchanging experiences and knowledge and fostering connections within the field.
Below, you can find a gallery of photos from the third National Conference on Quality Assurance in Vocational Education.
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