A long way to go … A study on the implementation of the learning-outcomes based approach in the EU

Quality of work-life plays a critical role in shaping employee satisfaction, productivity, and the overall effectiveness of higher educational institutions. Female staff in these settings encounter distinct challenges arising from the need to balance demanding professional roles with personal and family responsibilities. The present study was undertaken to examine and compare the quality of work-life experienced by female teaching and administrative staff working in higher educational institutions across Sivagangai District, Tamil Nadu, India. A cross-sectional survey approach was adopted to gather data from 250 female staff members, comprising 150 from the teaching category and 100 from the administrative category, drawn from 15 institutions in the district. A structured questionnaire was used to measure eight dimensions of work-life quality, including work environment, compensation, work-life balance, job security, professional development, organizational culture, autonomy, and health and safety. Findings revealed that teaching staff scored notably higher in professional development and autonomy compared to their administrative counterparts, and the differences were found to be statistically significant. On the other hand, administrative staff reported comparatively better work-life balance than teaching staff. When taken as a whole, both groups registered moderate levels of overall quality of work-life, though teaching staff maintained a marginally higher score

The article considers current ideas for ensuring the quality of education in higher education institutions of Ukraine. Emphasis is placed on its essential characteristics: dynamism, internationality, student-centeredness and the importance for the modern teacher of regular professional development, internships in European and world higher education institutions to master innovative technologies and methods of teaching students. The importance of mutual coordination of curricula in domestic and foreign free economic zones in order to ensure the academic mobility of students has been explained. It is noted about the expansion of access to education in free economic zones not only for citizens of Ukraine, but also for representatives of other countries, their equality in terms of admission. The essence of the concepts "quality of educational activity", "quality of higher education", "academic community", "university community", "anti-corruption program" and the importance of research aspect of free economic activity, the importance of forming students' critical thinking skills are substantiated. The importance of interaction between teachers and students in the learning process, conducting interactive discussions, Internet forums, e-mail correspondence, contact in "chats", the use of tools for the development of soft skills (training on issues related to teamwork, time management, leadership, personal development, presentations, etc.). Attention is focused on the introduction of innovations in the educational process, taking into account the attitude of the whole team of research and teaching staff, the presence in the HEI equipped at the modern level of the auditorium, the necessary devices, technical tools. The importance of having a personal cabinet for a modern teacher and student is briefly covered. Emphasis is placed on the importance of assessing the quality of teachers' educational activities. The necessity of functioning of the anti-corruption program in each free economic zone has been pointed out.

The Multiplier Events will see the participation of stakeholders, international experts, and academia. The aim of this regional multiplier event is to bring the results of the research conducted within the DIGITOOLS project. The workshop will also discuss the future of digital education in universities and European frameworks in the field of digital education. Special focus is on the role of Universities in the effective implementation of digital learning, Open educational resources and open access to resources.The crisis generated by the COVID 19 pandemic has forced European universities to move their teaching activities to the online environment. Although most Higher Education Institutions have implemented E-Learning platforms years ago, the teaching staff are now experiencing difficulties in using these platforms and in creating and adapting the course content, needed to quickly adapt to a fast evolving and complex situation.DIGITOOLS is a project aimed at introducing enhanced digital tools and methods to help university staff deliver quality education through online means. The DIGITOOLS project will develop five Intellectual Outputs which will support the teaching staff from Higher Education Institutions to acquire the skills and competencies needed to create and deliver high quality online courses, including blended teaching.The role of university libraries will be crucial in this project, as they will have to adapt their services and provide digital learning materials as well as information and digital skills training, both to teaching staff and students. As a result of the DIGITOOLS project, the universities will be able to provide, through teaching staff and libraries, high quality online training courses, with a focus on subject – specific teaching. The project brings together seven Higher Education Institutions and one consulting SME, specialized in digitization, from seven countries and will focus on the implementation of online and blended teaching, encouraging, at every step, the unitary practice.

The job commitment of student counsellors is crucial in Tanzanian universities, as they play a vital role in supporting students' academic, personal, and career development, addressing issues that can impact their wellbeing and performance. This study aimed to investigate the impact of work-life conflict on job commitment among student counsellors in higher education institutions in Tanzania. The study aimed to examine the influence of work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, and gender differences on job commitment among student counsellors. The study employed an explanatory research design using a mixed-methods research approach. In this study, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a structured questionnaire and an interview guide. The target population of 179 student counsellors was purposely selected, resulting in a sample size of 83 respondents obtained through the Yamane Formula. Quantitative data analysis included descriptive and inferential statistics, where Spearman correlation and regression analysis were used to summarise, explore, and make inferences. Likewise, qualitative data were analysed thematically to understand patterns and meanings within textual or observational data. The findings showed a significant correlation between work-life conflict and all employee commitment factors. Furthermore, the findings reveal that work-family conflict significantly contributed to employee commitment, with work-to-family interference found to be higher than family-to-work conflict among student counsellors. Furthermore, based on work-family role conflict, the results indicate a considerable difference in organisational commitment between male and female respondents. Based on the study's findings, an organisational support program should be developed and made available to all student counsellors to lessen the strain of role conflict between work and family and to encourage their job commitment practically.

Objectives The objective of this review was to evaluate evidence on the structures and processes that support development of effective culturally competent practices and a healthy work environment. Culturally competent practices are a congruent set of workforce behaviours, management practices and institutional policies within a practice setting resulting in an organisational environment that is inclusive of cultural and other forms of diversity. Inclusion criteria This review included quantitative and qualitative evidence, with a particular emphasis on identifying systematic reviews and randomised controlled trials. For quantitative evidence, other controlled, and descriptive designs were also included. For qualitative evidence, all methodologies were considered. Participants were staff, patients, and systems or policies that were involved or affected by concepts of cultural competence in the nursing workforce in a healthcare environment. Types of interventions included any strategy that had a cultural competence component, which influenced the work environment, and/or patient and nursing staff in the environment. The types of outcomes of interest to this review included nursing staff outcomes, patient outcomes, organisational outcomes and systems level outcomes. Search strategy The search sought both published and unpublished literature written in the English language. A comprehensive three-step search strategy was used, first to identify appropriate key words, second to combine all optimal key words into a comprehensive search strategy for each database and finally to review the reference lists of all included reviews and research reports. The databases searched were CINAHL, Medline, Current Contents, the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness, The Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, Embase, Sociological Abstracts, Econ lit, ABI/Inform, ERIC and PubMed. The search for unpublished literature used Dissertation Abstracts International. Methodological quality Methodological quality was independently established by two reviewers, using standardised techniques from the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) System for the Unified Management, Assessment and Review of Information (SUMARI) package. Discussion with a third reviewer was initiated where a low level of agreement was identified for a particular paper. Following inclusion, data extraction was conducted using standardised data extraction tools from the JBI SUMARI suite for quantitative and qualitative research. Data synthesis was performed using the JBI Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument and JBI Narrative, Opinion and Text Assessment and Review Instrument software to aggregate findings by identifying commonalities across texts. Quantitative data were presented in narrative summary, as statistical pooling was not appropriate with the included studies. Results Of the 659 identified papers, 45 were selected for full paper retrieval, and 19 were considered to meet the inclusion criteria for this review. The results identified a number of processes that would contribute to the development of a culturally competent workforce. Appropriate and competent linguistic services, and intercultural staff training and education, were identified as key findings in this review. Conclusions The review recommends that health provider agencies establish links with organisations that can address needs of culturally diverse groups of patients, include cultural competence in decision support systems and staff education as well as embed them in patient brochures and educational materials. The review also concluded that staff in-service programs consider the skills needed to foster a culturally competent workforce, and recruitment strategies that also explicitly address this need.

This edited international volume investigates the role of universities and other types of higher education institutions (HEIs) in tackling climate change (CC) in the context of political steering and policy frameworks. In this introductory chapter, we first map the big picture of the global problem of CC, what causes it and the key players in the area. The discussion is somewhat simplified but hopefully gives insights of why the problem is so pervasive and what could be HEIs’ and policy’s potential roles in global CC mitigation. We then turn into the policy—HEI nexus and discuss the shifting overall policies and their steering effect on the HE sector. Short descriptions of the empirical case studies conclude the introduction.

This essay will look at the key challenges public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) faced in Brazil during the COVID-19 lockdown. The pandemic led universities to close their campuses and adopt an online interface for academic activities. However, many of these institutions do not have the technological infrastructure for such, nor did the staff and students who suffered further social exclusions. The president of Brazil referred to the pandemic as a “little flu” and later on responded to measures adopting the lockdown as a “hysteric” act that “will lead to an economic crash”. Considering the lack of support from the government and the process of dismantling resources for public HE since the beginning of the new presidency elected in 2018, the COVID-19 lockdown quickly revealed the institutional racism, elitism and ableism evident in this administration’s agenda. The consequence of the agenda is the cuts on research funds and lack of infrastructure to provide online classes, as examples of the severe policies that promote the erasure of marginalised groups. Such policies follow Sylvia Wynter’s “Argument”, revealing a code of symbolic life and death of how human order organises itself through the coloniality of power/being. In order to show how such symbolic code is engraved in the Brazilian educational system, this study explores narratives of staff and students from three universities per region of Brazil to identify how the colonial legacies are correlated with postulates of power in the Brazilian HEIs setting during the pandemic. The paper discusses the challenges experienced while keeping the HE sector active during a pandemic that the government has belittled. The conclusions advocate for organised strategies at the union and social movements level to dismantle the colonial occupation put in place in the foundation of the HEIs and reinforced by the current necropolitical administration.

The article is aimed at researching new strategies for management decisions focused on the development of human resources in the context of crisis challenges. It has been established that management decisions in the field of educational management are currently being implemented under conditions of financial constraints, and, accordingly, the further high-quality functioning of the education system and its strategic development, in the face of crisis challenges, requires modeling a new paradigm of the realized importance of human resources in the national higher education space, which in turn stimulates the search for new approaches to the implementation of management strategies in the field of higher education and the creation of new non-standard concepts of HR management in war conditions. It is proved that in the current conditions of increased risks, the strategy of HR policy of a higher education institution is aimed at maintaining the effectiveness of educational and scientific activities of participants in the educational process through modernization of the HR management system, ensuring a safe educational space, changing models of incentives and motivation for the professional development of research and teaching staff, creating internal financial resources by expanding the practices of providing additional educational services by a higher education institution, directing such revenues to the professional development of research and teaching staff and the creation of safe conditions for professional activity. It is determined that the main measures to manage the development of the scientific and pedagogical potential of a modern Ukrainian higher education institution in today's conditions should be concentrated in four key areas: creating safe labour conditions; forming a system of incentives and motives for high-quality professional activities, including material incentives; creating conditions for continuous staff development to ensure their psychological comfort; focusing on additional educational services, focusing on additional educational services, project activities and interdisciplinary programs as a strategic direction to compensate the financial constraints of educational institutions. These measures will help to increase the competitiveness of educational institutions and the quality of educational programs.

The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented disruptions in the education sector. For higher education institutions, avoiding and limiting the risks of infection of the academic community has become a primordial concern. Thus, it has become an urgent need to explore innovative learning modalities that will facilitate migration from traditional to flexible teaching and learning options. The paradigm shift therefore in the teaching and learning process in the higher education institutions in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) necessitates assessment on the readiness of colleges and universities in the Cordillera as part of this transformation towards new normal. Descriptive research was employed in this study that systematically described the situations of the various Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of CAR. Online survey was conducted among 28 participating schools in the region. Basic statistical tool like frequency count, weighted mean, averaging and percentages were used to analyze the gathered data. Findings show that, adjusting to the new normal, 25 or 89.3% of the participating HEIs answered that they have been utilizing flexible learning system (FLS) and 16 (57.1%) mentioned that FLS is covered in their institutional policies. Infrastructure to support the delivery of FLS is present among majority of the HEIs. 24 institutions have the capability to develop instructional materials. Faculty and students were also evaluated on their readiness towards the transformation to the new normal and it was revealed that there are challenges that both faculty and students must consider in the adaptation of online distance learning or flexible learning. With the results of the study, school readiness is a big factor in making a decision in shifting from face to face to flexible learning system or online distance learning to achieve quality education. HEIs should therefore develop their own framework, continuity plan or game plan and creation of consortium among HEIs in the region for continuous learning anchored on the existing tools and resources of the institution, capability of staff and faculty members, and capacity of students. Regardless of the modalities of teaching, schools must always aim for the best education that they could give to all students. Equal and quality education must be shared among students amidst this pandemic.

This study compares the effectiveness of online versus traditional face-to-face advancement programs for higher education teaching staff. Using a pre-and post-test design, we assessed the knowledge and skills of student teaching staff participating in online and face to-face classes. Data on teaching staff satisfaction were drawn from a satisfaction survey. The study population comprised 300 teaching staff recruited from different higher education institutions and divided into two equal groups. Using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) method, we found that face-to-face learners reported higher satisfaction with learning than those engaged in online training, with mean scores of 77.10 versus 75.04 points. This study has important implications for education policymakers, curriculum developers, and academic institutions, and it highlights the need to balance technological advances with traditional teaching effectiveness. The result of this study can be helpful in choosing professional development strategies and integrating online and traditional learning activities.

Higher education institutions and its stakeholders are just about to catch up with the rapid pace at which educational data are being generated. While recent learning analytics research and applications are mainly focused on learning, there is an increased awareness that data analytics may provide teaching staff with evidence-based insights for enhancing teaching processes. The aim of this systematic review is to gain a deeper understanding on how data analytics in the educational context may play a role in helping teaching staff to leverage their own teaching A total of N = 18,723 articles were located and screened resulting in a final sample N = 35 key publications. Findings indicate that empowering teachers with data from educational contexts may support pre-active, interactive, and post-active reflection phases of teaching. However, teaching staff are required to further develop their educational data literacy in order to avoid biased pedagogical decision-making.

Many people in higher education wonder where the rapid changes in information technology are going to take them. Many more fear that the ongoing information technology explosion may eventually leave them behind. Due to entrenched mindsets and bureaucracy in higher education, fostering a technology cultural change requires paradigm shifts in all areas of administration, teaching, and research. A fundamental paradigm shift must happen in four areas before a technology cultural change can beset on a forward path. This chapter focuses on four essential components of a paradigm shift in technology and higher education at the University of Minnesota Crookston (UMC). This case describes how a paradigm shift model can help to promote a long-term technology cultural change in a higher education institution. The model consists of technology commitment, technology philosophy, investment priority, and development focus. It has been used at UMC to bring about a reengineering of the entire institution to support a ubiquitous laptop environment throughout the curriculum and campus. The model has helped UMC achieve an overwhelming success in utilizing laptop computing and other technology to enhance learning.

Una vision general de los programas de Ingeniería Civil en Colombia

With the paradigm shift towards digitally enabled, skill-focused, synchronous-asynchronous learning models being tested and deployed across various higher education institutions and universities across the globe, it is imperative and an essential element of the future of education and skilling. A holistic approach will bring about the necessary quality and improve the technology implementation to enable better outcomes. As hybrid/blended learning approach is evolving as the new pedagogy especially in the higher education segment worldwide; this chapter envisages to embrace technology in five dimensions—intelligent tutoring system (ITS) or adaptive learning, education management information system (EMIS), research-based learning (RBL), degree of automation, and IT security/ethics and privacy—towards arriving at a maturity assessment model for evaluation of EdTech, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), for adoption in higher education institutions. This would catalyze enhancement of outcome-based education (OBE).

The subject of the study is the legal regulation of qualification requirements for the teaching staff of higher educational institutions in the Russian Federation. The authors discuss the main qualification requirements that apply to the positions of assistant, teacher, senior lecturer, associate professor, professor. Universities may introduce additional requirements when announcing a competition for positions, in most cases they are reduced to the applicant's compliance with a certain level of publication activity. The legal regulation of the requirements for the teaching staff of higher educational institutions is carried out in accordance with the norms of the Labor Code, the Law "On Education in the Russian Federation", the corresponding Order of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation. The activity of the teaching staff is connected with the implementation of federal state educational programs, which also prescribe the requirements for personnel. As a result of the study, the specifics of the qualification requirements for scientific and pedagogical workers were revealed. The complexity of the professional functions performed by the teaching staff largely determines the existence of a fairly extensive legal framework regulating social and labor relations between an employee and an employer. The analysis of this legal framework indicates not only its multi-step nature and complexity, but also a certain instability. A number of qualification requirements have recently undergone significant changes. A certain obstacle to starting a teaching profession is the qualification requirements for the position of an assistant. The requirements for the teaching staff vary not only from position to position, but also vary depending on the institution of higher education.