Higher Education Quality Assurance Department of the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement of Georgia organized a workshop for Educational Program Accreditation Council on March the 24th and 25th, 2023. The new Accreditation Council was appointed by the Prime-Minister of Georgia by February the 15th, 2023 Order #30 (Accreditation Council members: https://eqe.ge/en/page/parent/703/umaghlesi-saganmanatleblo-programebis-akreditatsiis-sabcho). The workshop was held at Tbilisi Marriot Hotel and the event was fully funded by the USAID Rule of Law program. The National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement of Georgia has a close cooperation with the USAID within the scope of the USAID Rule of Law Program in Georgia. Deputy Director of the NCEQE, Lasha Margishvili, Chief of the USAID Rule of Law Program, Giorgi Chkheidze, members of the Educational Program Accreditation Council, representatives of Higher Education Quality Assurance and Qualifications Development Departments attended the event. 

Due to the specificity of higher educational program cluster accreditation, educational programs in pre-determined fields of study are accredited each academic year. For example, in 2022 educational programs in humanities went through external cluster evaluation. Educational programs in arts, sports, tourism, security services, military and defence fields of studies will go through cluster accreditation in 2023. 

The members of the Accreditation Council and representatives of the NCEQE had a detailed discussion of the relevant legislation and standards which are of paramount importance for efficient management of impartial and informed evaluation process. The workshop participants discussed the specificity of cluster accreditation, principles for the operation of the Accreditation Council, local and international trends of educational quality assurance and educational program evaluation principles, the specificity of joint and doctoral program evaluation, internationalization of higher education, ethical issues in the evaluation process, the national qualifications framework, renewed benchmark statement of medical education, etc. 

Throughout the workshop, the members of the Accreditation Council were informed about the engagement of the NCEQE in the projects defined through the internationalization strategy and the achieved progress, the Bologna Follow-up Group (BFUG) 2022 activities, the results of cooperation with the Hungarian Quality Assurance Agency (MAB) concerning the principles of doctoral program evaluation, and the importance of the NCEQE participation in ERASMUS+ projects (e.g. SQUARE, PROFORMANCE, ETHICS, etc.) in order to better support the development of teaching and learning process, research skills and doctoral programs.