The 13th Annual Caribbean Area Network for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education (CANQATE) Conference was held from October 4-7, 2016 at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre in Liliendaal, Georgetown, Guyana. The conference, hosted by the National Accreditation Council of Guyana, was held under the theme: “Sustaining a Culture of Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education for National and Regional Development”. Mrs Lisa Henlin, Acting Executive Director, Dr Angela Penny, Director, Research and Development and Dr Dotlyn Minott, Director, Accreditation represented the UCJ at the conference.
During the conference, Mrs Henlin and Dr Minott presented a paper titled, “Programme Readiness Assessment: A Quality Improvement Initiative”. The paper outlined the UCJ’s Programme Readiness Assessment policy framework and discussed the lessons learnt since the establishment of the policy. The presentation was used as an opportunity to encourage other Caribbean External Quality Assurance Agencies (EQAA) to replicate the policy framework.
The four plenary sessions during the conference assessed: “Civil Society as a Critical Stakeholder in Building and Sustaining a Culture of Quality Assurance”; “The Role of National and Regional Universities in Building and Sustaining a Quality Culture in the Caribbean for National and Regional Development”; “The Establishment and Continued Existence of EQAAs as Critical autonomous Agencies in Sustaining a Quality Assurance Culture”; and “The Cost of Building and the Source of Funding a sustained Quality Assurance Culture”.
This year’s conference also included a seminar which reviewed “The 2030 Caribbean Regional Human Resource Development Strategy Implications for Quality Assurance, Qualifications Frameworks and Accreditation Priorities”.
