The Ukraine Higher Education Teaching Excellence Programme is envisaged as a three year national development programme. Advance HE is working with the British Council on the initial part of the programme developing the concept. This part of work will be delivered in three phases which will culminate in a plan for the three-year national capacity building programme. Phase 1, which is already underway, is an audit and needs analysis project which will benchmark Ukraine’s higher education teaching against international standards.
The audit will recommend strategic areas for priority development to enhance teaching practice on a national basis. These recommendations will be reviewed through focus groups with Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, National Academy of the Education Sciences of Ukraine, Institute of Higher Education, and National Agency for Quality Assurance and university representatives.
In the second phase, academics from Ukraine will be hosted in the UK by Advance HE and two universities on a study visit to get insights into teaching and learning initiatives, the strategic and operational aspects of them, and the impact these initiatives have. Phase 3 will see Advance HE and colleagues from Ukraine’s higher education sector to develop the three-year national capacity building programme.
Lyudmila Tatsenko, Head of Education at the British Council Ukraine, said, “This programme is part of a range of work being undertaken to help Ukraine make a transformational change in modernising its higher education through the sharing of UK knowledge and expertise. We look forward to the outcomes of this work to support the development of quality teaching skills for university staff in Ukraine.”
Ian Hall, Advance HE’s Head of Membership (International), said, “We’re very excited to be working on this important programme. Capacity building is key to promoting, enhancing and sustaining teaching excellence and it’s fantastic to see the appetite of the HE sector in Ukraine to approach and lead this strategically.”
Advance HE has worked with the British Council on a range of projects across the world including recently in Ukraine, delivering a three-year Leadership Development programme for staff from 40 institutions.