Deepening Partnership with Turkish Higher Education Quality Council

In collaboration with Advance HE, the British Council organised study visits for the Turkish Higher Education Quality Council (THEQC) to University College London, City, University of London, the University of East London and the Science Council.  This is the first time that THEQC's high-level delegation has visited UK universities.

The main aim of the visit was to learn about the teaching and learning excellence and academic enhancement practices carried out in UK universities and to identify possible collaboration areas between institutions. The visit took place between 8 and15 October 2022, and each UK host included meetings with vice-rectors, provosts, deans, heads of departments and section managers.

The Turkish delegation included:

• Turkish Higher Education Quality Council’s (THEQC) Vice President - Prof. Dr. Mustafa Çufalı
• Ahi Evran University’s Rector - Prof. Dr. Vatan Karakaya 
• THEQC Expert - Assoc. Prof. Salih Bardakcı
• British Council’s Head of English Programmes - Ayşen Güven
• Education Project Manager - Ali Murat Güçlü

The strategic partnership with THEQC started in 2017 with a joint project on identifying minimum standards for English preparatory schools of higher education institutions. The memorandum of understanding was signed with THEQC in 2021 to deepen and diversify our collaboration on quality assurance and academic excellence.

This study visit to the UK is the second part of our collaboration on developing teaching and learning excellence in Turkey. The first part was the design and delivery of a joint online training programme, which aimed to train academics who will establish and run teaching and learning excellence centres at universities in Turkey. 190 academics from more than 150 different universities have participated in the training programme between October and December 2021. The training consisted of six different modules: teaching methods, quality assurance (QA) mechanisms, student participation in QA, quality culture and innovative assessment models. We aim to continue the strategic partnership with THEQC to diversify our collaboration areas and help them to improve the quality of delivery in higher education institutions in Turkey.