On October 17, 2017 Polotsk State University hosted the international seminar «Fostering Competencies in Belarusian Higher Education». The event was carried our within the framework of the FOSTERC project «Fostering Competencies Development in Belarusian Higher Education» funded by the European Union.
This autumn several Belarusian higher education establishments have planned a series of training workshops on the development of educational programmes on the basis of competence approach. One of them has been carried out at Polotsk State University that is included in a consortium of 15 partners. The international seminar was attended by deans of Faculties, heads of Departments, teachers, also a group of university partners headed by the project coordinator Dr. Adela Garcia Aracil (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain):
- Algimantas Šventickas (Lithuanian University of Education Sciences, Vilnius, Lithuania);
- Danguolė Bylaitė-Salavėjienė (Lithuanian University of Education Sciences, Vilnius, Lithuania);
- Angelė Kausylienė (Lithuanian University of Education Sciences, Vilnius, Lithuania);
- Małgorzata Dajnowicz (University of Bialystok, Bialystok, Poland);
- Katarzyna Szorc (University of Bialystok, Bialystok, Poland);
- Juha Jaatinen (University of Turku, Turku, Finland).
The seminar was opened by Yury Golubev (PhD in Engineering, Associate Professor) who underlined its importance for our university: «We keep educational traditions with care but at the same time we understand that our world and society don’t stand still, that’s why the education must be changed. We try to combine traditions and innovations in education and science. The most effective method for learning something is to study the experience of our colleagues. Such international seminars, that represent the European Union and have a successful experience in the realization of Bologna principles, refer to this method».
The dean of Law Faculty at PSU, PhD in Law, Associate professor Irina Vegera presented the report «Belarus in the European Higher Education Area: Challenges and Prospects».
Dr. Adela Garcia Aracil in her report «Bologna Process: Pedagogical Dimension» told the Belarusian participants of the seminar about the requirements for teachers. The project coordinator also characterized the role of higher education in knowledge society, the idea of educational competencies, their groups and developing, competencies assessment and evaluation.
Katarzyna Szorc in her presentation «ECTS credit allocation: the basis and the example of University of Bialystok» analyzed the theoretical background of ECTS, considered the methods for allocating ECTS credits and gave practical examples of their allocation in syllabuses (History, Pedagogy, Sociology) used at the University of Bialystok.
The seminar was continued by the presentation «Study programmes: Organizational challenges» prepared by representatives of Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences. Danguolė Bylaitė-Salavėjienė has told about ten steps which are necessary for developing current study programmes and designing new ones.
The participant from University of Turku Juha Jaatinen presented the report «Ensuring the Quality and Assessment» and told about the assessment in «competence paradigm», methods and new effective approaches to the assessment of learning outcomes.
After all the presentations Belarusian colleagues had an opportunity to discuss specific issues. PSU teachers also attended one more practical seminar that was held after a short lunch-break.
The participants of the international seminar «Fostering Competencies in Belarusian Higher Education» shared their opinions about the international seminar.
Adela Garcia Aracil, (Valencia, Spain): «We’ve organized this training workshop to promote the Bologna process implementation here, in Belarus. The project is aimed at fostering competencies development in the Belarusian higher education system. We think that it is very important for all the Higher Education Institutions. We’ll see how we can make first steps and promote the implementation of the Bologna process as soon as possible. So if you are interested in this project, you can visit our official website http://fosterc.bsu.by. The project takes three years, but at the moment we are just at the beginning of its realization.»
Danguolė Bylaitė-Salavėjienė (Vilnius, Lithuania): «We are partners of FOSTERC project which is aimed at developing education for Bologna process in different countries. Our task is to share our best experience with Belarusian colleagues. We’ve come to Polotsk State University for the first time and we are very glad to have new contacts. We really hope to develop our partnership in the future».
Juha Jaatinen (Turku, Finland): «I represent the University of Turku and today I’m going to tell our Belarusian colleagues about the educational paradigm based on a competence approach. I think, when you evaluate competencies, the key issues are cooperative teaching and learning and co-teaching. Lately we’ve studied and approved these approaches in Finland. It’s nice to be here and see this cooperation. It helps to prepare our students for labour market demands and to form good competencies for their successful future».
