ALIGN

ALIGN (Achieving and Checking the Alignment between Academic Programmes and Qualification Frameworks– №:543901-TEMPUS-1-2013-1-AM-TEMPUS-JPGR) grant project launched in December, 2013.The outcomes of the project were summarized on October 10, 2017 at the project coordinating institution-Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences with participation of Armenian, Russian, Ukrainian and European partner institutions, Armenian HEIs and stakeholders.

ALIGN was a TEMPUS grant project, with a wider objective to enhance the intelligibility, consistency and transferability of qualifications through establishment of mechanisms for HEIs to achieve alignment of academic programmes with NQFs and for QA agencies to check such alignment.

Specific Objectives:

To promote a better understanding of HEIs and EQA agencies of the role of QFs, their structure, as well as the differences between the different KINDS and LEVELS of student achievement
To build on the capacity of the HEIs to use the QF alignment to facilitate student transfer, joint qualifications and benchmarking
To enable the EQA agencies to check whether proposed learning outcomes and their assessment mechanisms match of QF descriptors at each level by establishing mechanisms for ensuring consistency of judgements across institutions.

SAFAA being one of the three Armenian partner HEIs of the project and coordinator with YSULS had an active participation in the project management and recorded the following tangible results that speak about the successful progress and implementation of the project:

Documents developed during the project:

a) Guide to development and revision of academic programmes of SAFAA to ensure the alignment of academic programmes to NQF,

b) Revision of two academic programmes selected by SAFAA, namely MA programme in Design and BA in Computer Graphics (defining mission, goals and objectives, learning outcomes of the academic programmes, revision of curriculum, development of examples of course descriptors) in line with the guidelines for aligning academic programmes to the Armenian National Qualifications Framework developed during the project and the handbook and templates (formats) set by SAFAA,

c) pre-evaluation of selected two academic programmes according to the prior developed alignment format, that resulted the exploitation of academic programmes and summarizing the evaluation presented by the group consisting of national and international experts. As a result, a plan for further improvement was developed, as well as activities were envisaged that would lead to the revision and alignment of other academic programmes of SAFAA to the National Qualifications Framework,

d) actively participated in the development of all the documents within the project; Guidelines for aligning academic programmes to the Armenian National Qualifications Framework, Achievements brochure, etc.

Information on project progress, its impact, main achievements, existing problems of academic programmes in Armenian HE system, modern issues and challenges to align them with the NQF and labour market needs, as well as tangible achievement of SAFAA attained within the project, can be found through the following links:

1. ALIGN – ALIGN – Impact (part 1)
1.ALIGN – ALIGN – Impact (part 2)
2. ALIGN – ALIGN – About, Progress and Achievements
3. ALIGN – ALIGN – SAFAA Impact

For detailed information on the project, please visit www.align.brusov.am

Documents developed within the project