Professor Joe O’Hara leads EU expert mission to Azerbaijan

Porfessor Joe O'Hara, Director of the Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection (EQI) recently led an EU expert mission to discuss systems of school accreditation and evaluation in Azerbaijan. Organised under the auspices of the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange (TAIEX) instrument of the European Commission the mission saw Professor O'Hara and Dr. Elizabeth Fordham, Senior Advisor for Global Relations in the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills work with senior stakeholders from the education system in Azerbaijan to examine how a system of school evaluation and accreditation might be developed. Despite significant investment in systems in recent years the Ministry for Education in Azerbaijan felt that there was knowledge and skills gap in the critically important area of school quality assurance. To address this they requested an expert input from an organisation with a strong research and practical experience in the field. EQI was identified as an ideal international partner by TAIEX and it is intended to follow up on this initiative with more expert engagements in the coming months.