Tuesday 12 May 2015

Monday 12th May: Warsaw Day One

Note: we will be updating this post with more pictures, weblinks later....
 
The first day was busy. First we had a visit to Kozminski University, a private non-profit business school that was  one of few business schools in the world with 'triple crown accreditation' (EQUIS, AMBA, AACSB). We had a most informative morning meeting with the academic who oversees quality assurance, who gave us a great insights into how QA processes are operationalised.

Then a quick tram ride back into the centre of Warsaw to the Warsaw Technical University, which has been teaching in Polish for 100 years. Every ninth president among the top 500 corporations in Poland is a graduate of the Warsaw University of Technology.We had the pleasure of meeting some of the senior managers there. The building is also quite impressive (Angela is behind the camera).


The day was completed by a visit to the PKA (the Polish equivalent of the QAA) where the quality assurance regime and its develoopment were explained in some detail. We did manage to grab a coffee beforehand.



Of course there was time in the evening to find a nice resturant in the Old Town and enjoy some Polish specialities.

Of course it is too early too say what will be written in the final report, but some points struck the team after day one.
  • Unlike the UK external examiners are not used by HEIs, rather external academics look at samples of work as part of the PKA review process.
  • Internationalisation is a recent consideration (there were only about 45K non-Polish students in the system), and the drivers appear to be not as commercial as would be the case in the publically funded UK HEIs.
  • The democratisation of public university governance with key officers (e.g. Rector) being elected; in the communist era the post-holders were apponted.

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