QAA in Colombo

QAA's Director of International and Professional Services Eduardo Ramos last week took part in a conference organised by the British Council in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The three-day 'South Asia Deep Dialogues' event explored the opportunities for, and challenges of, widening access to quality tertiary education through transnational education (TNE).

The conference included speakers from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and the UK.

Eduardo participated in a panel discussion on the subject of the importance of quality assurance in TNE – a discussion which considered the frameworks, policies and realities in which such provision operates.

Eduardo was joined on the panel by Director of Strategy and Delivery at the Office for Students Joshua Fleming, Director of Pakistan's Institute of Management Sciences Dr Usman Ghani, and the University of Reading's Ashish Jaiswar. The panel was chaired by Salvador Lopez, the British Council's Director of Education for South Asia.

Eduardo explained the three layers of quality assurance involved in UK TNE, in terms of national frameworks, institutional policies and course-specific requirements, and shared case-study research from different countries, including Sri Lanka, on the practices of quality assurance in TNE.

The session also gave delegates the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences of their interactions with these quality processes and to consider the main challenges they face in evidencing quality.

"This was a fascinating and stimulating session towards the end of a very productive few days," said Eduardo. "I'd like to thank the British Council, our hosts and all the colleagues we met in Colombo for creating such a great forum for knowledge exchange and debate."