Prenosimo e-poruku Thomasa Farnella:
Dear ACCESS Consortium members,
Following three and half years of cooperation on the ACCESS project, I would like to write a closing message to all partners on the project to thank you for your cooperation and to provide you with a final update about the project results and impact.
The final project report was submitted to the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). For your reference, the document enclosed presents the most important parts of the narrative part of the final report. The main results and impact of the ACCESS project and its sustainability can be summed up as follows:
- Wealth of data on higher education access and funding for the purposes of policy-making: The ACCESS produced four publications which will represent a key source of data for policy-making in Croatia in the field of higher education funding and the social dimension of higher education.
- High-quality policy guidelines for reforming higher education funding and improving the social dimension of higher education: The ACCESS project produced policy guidelines for the reform of the higher education funding system in Croatia, with a primary focus on improving the social dimension of higher education. The achievement of producing such detailed policy guidelines is substantial – such detailed analyses of these aspects of Croatian higher education (with recommendations of international experts) have not been made since reports by the OECD and the World Bank in 2007 and 2008.
- Impact on National Strategy for Education, Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia: The single most important impact of the ACCESS project has been the inclusion of the project’s recommendations relating to equal access to higher education and the reform of the higher education funding and student financial support system into the draft version of Croatia’s national strategy covering the field of education. The impact of the ACCESS project on concrete future policies is therefore likely to be significant.
- Sustainability – follow-up initiatives relating to equity in HE: Following discussions held at ACCESS meetings on this topic, the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports has agreed that Croatia would take part in the a country review of its policies for addressing the social dimension on higher education, which will be carried out by international experts within the Erasmus Multilateral project “Peer-learning initiative for the social dimension” (in which IDE is a partner). This will represent a significant step towards Croatia developing a strategic and integrated approach to addressing inequalities in access to higher education. Additionally, from September 2013 the Institute for the Development of Education is leading a new EU-funded, national project for linking social inclusion and quality assurance in higher education, which aims to institutionalise a quality culture which promotes social inclusion at Croatian higher education institutions.
It has been a genuine pleasure to work with you on this project for these past few years and the success of this project is due entirely to the commitment and enthusiasm of each partner on this project. Thank you once again for your support and cooperation! Our Institute is eager to develop a follow-up project to the ACCESS project, and we would also be delighted to work with you in the future and to support your institutions in the future on higher education reform projects that you wish to develop (e.g. for the Erasmus+ or Horizon 2020 calls next year). We hope that such cooperation opportunities will open and – until then -I wish you all the best on behalf of the entire team at IDE.
Best regards,
Thomas
Oznake: aktualnosti iz svijeta, Thomas Farnell