ECAQA participated in the extended meeting of the Collegium of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan titled “Workforce Development as the Foundation of a Competitive Economy and Sustainable Development: Innovations, Technologies, and Industry Collaboration”, which took place on February 7, 2025, at Nazarbayev University.

During the meeting, Minister Sayasat Nurbek delivered a speech highlighting the achievements and future prospects of higher education, the success of universities in national and international rankings, an analysis of the demand for new personnel from businesses and manufacturing enterprises, and advancements in digitalization. Yeshenkulov T.I., Vice Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, spoke about effective interaction in the field of training in-demand personnel. Zhankuatov G.Zh., Chair of the Science Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, presented a report on the implementation of the Law on Science and Technology Policy.

Issues related to the digital transformation of higher education and science were addressed by Shcheglova D.R., Vice Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan. A key topic of the meeting was the State Language Policy, which was covered in the report by Tleshov E.E., Chair of the Language Policy Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The programme of the Collegium also included presentations from rectors of Kazakhstan’s universities, as well as representatives from industry, manufacturing, and business sectors.

For the Eurasian Centre for Accreditation and Quality Assurance in Higher Education and Health Care, it was important to receive objective and reliable information on the employability of graduates from educational organisations, approaches to analyzing the quality of practical training for specialists, the use of innovative developments in education, access to global educational platforms, the socialization of youth, models for advanced workforce training in the context of the internationalization of education, trends in the growth of international students, the export of educational services, and other current issues of higher and postgraduate education.

​The Director General of ECAQA, Saule Sarsenbayeva, participated in the Forum of the Committee for Quality Assurance in Science and Higher Education of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan titled «Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Current State and Development Prospects», held on January 17, 2025, in Astana at Astana IT University.

​The key topics of the Forum included state control issues, the dynamics of Kazakhstani universities in the QS ranking—areas for improvement, accreditation and control, new approaches, accreditation and control, and «E-licensing».

​The plenary session, attended by the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, S. Nurbek, covered discussions on the current state and development trends in quality assurance in higher education and science, international aspects and trends in external quality assurance, strategies for improving the effectiveness of scientific personnel training, the role of the Association of Scientists in the development of scientific journals, and the «Unified Higher Education Platform» information system as a centralized database for data collection, processing, and analysis.

​The information obtained is relevant and important for application in institutional and specialized accreditation procedures for educational organisations.

January 8, 2025 held a Workshop for accreditation experts: “Roles and competencies of experts in the external evaluation of postgraduate education”.

The workshop was held in Al-Farabi KazNU, which was attended by 50 faculty of clinical departments of the University. Considered the issues of Quality Assurance of medical education, international principles and approaches to quality assessment of PGE, the process and procedures of accreditation.

Training included the updated Standards for Quality Improvement of PGE of the WFME 2023 and the new Standards for Residency Programme Accreditation of the ECAQA. We worked on the Standards in small groups. Learned to analyze the residency programme Self-evaluation Report, plan external evaluation, identify the most effective activities of the site visit, look for evidence of compliance with Standards, formulate expert questions, etc.

At the end of the workshop, all participants received Certificates. Thus, expanding the pool of ECAQA experts.

Progress Visit to ECAQA took place on 19 June 2024. ECAQA was visited by international experts, including: Patrick Van Den Bosch, Member of ENQA Board, Chief of Flemish Higher Education Council - QA, Belgium and Nuria Comet Senal, Project coordinator for internal Quality Assurance of the accreditation agency AQU Catalunya, Spain.

Following ENQA's evaluation of ECAQA in 2021 and the decision to award ECAQA full ENQA member status in 2022, an international expert progress visit was planned for 2024. The progress visit aims: to offer an enhancement-oriented and strategically driven dialogue that ordinarily might be difficult to truly integrate in the compliance-focused site visit (the Guidelines for ENQA Agency Reviews, 2021 version), discussion of issues proposed by the Accreditation Centre (Government Policy on Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Responsiveness and Responsibility of QAA; Cross-border Accreditation in Medical and Healthcare Professions Education: Regional and National Context; Quality Assurance in Postgraduate Medical Education: Challenges and Perspectives).

The progress visit took place during the day and according to the program. Members of the Accreditation Council, Expert Board, experts on accreditation, experts-students participated from ECAQA.