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Colleagues working in science and higher education from Turkey, Slovenia and the Netherlands visited the Agency for Science and Higher Education in September 2019.

ASHE hosted the representatives of the Slovenian Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, prof. dr. Franci Demšar, Director of the Agency, and Klemen Šubic. The topics discussed were the good practices that the two agencies exchanged, the development of quality culture in the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia, internationalization of higher education, accreditation of joint and online studies, procedures and evaluation standards and legislation in the area of quality assurance in higher education, since Slovenia still does not have a separate law regulating that area. ASHE Acting Director, Prof. Jasmina Havranek, Ph.D., stressed the need for strengthening cooperation between the two agencies which on this occasion signed the Cooperation Agreement, so they can exchange experts in evaluations and accreditation procedures in the field of quality assurance and other projects.

On the same day, ASHE hosted the representatives of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science as part of their study visit to the Republic of Croatia. The participants talked about the system of higher education in the Republic of Croatia, internationalization of higher education, mobility and other priorities related to higher education, especially from the aspect of the forthcoming Croatia’s presidency of the EU. ASHE representatives introduced their Dutch colleagues with quality assurance in the Croatian higher education system and it was stressed that the first cycle of re-accreditation of all higher education institutions showed that the internationalization and mobility are the weak points of Croatian higher education. Participants were also informed that in order to raise awareness of this issue, ASHE started a cycle of seminars on the internationalization of higher education and conducted research among higher education institutions in order to identify difficulties encountered by higher education institutions in their internationalization efforts.

On 10 September 2019 ASHE hosted Prof. dr. Mustafa Çufali, rector of the University Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit from Turkey, Mr. Dinçer Biçer from the University Office for International Cooperation and Mrs. Zeynep Gizem Hancerli, representative of the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Croatia. They met with representatives of the Agency to exchange information on the systems of quality assurance in higher education in Croatia and Turkey and to become familiar with the processes of quality assurance in higher education and science carried out by ASHE. Furthermore, the processes of internationalization of higher education were discussed and the experiences from both countries regarding the delivery of study programmes in English, attracting foreign students, delivering joint studies and other topics. Representatives of the University Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit are interested in cooperation with Croatian universities and attracting Croatian students to their University. In relation to that they also met with representatives of the University of Zagreb and the Croatian Catholic University in Zagreb.

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