Palestinian Universities are ready to start the online training on university governance and quality assurance. This will provide capacity building for both the project participants and the leadership of partner universities. Based on a preliminary training needs assessment, and thanks to the implementation and application of the diagnostic tool by the Palestinian universities, the training material as well as the courses are designed.
Higher administration officers, deans of faculties, planning, development and quality assurance officers, and other leading personnel nominated by the partner Palestinian universities will be the beneficiaries of a three months online training.
The online training outcomes are the following:
Unit 1 – Institutional Governance
- discuss national and international influences on functioning of universities;
- describe the key principles for third level governance;
- compare different examples of universities;
- list the required administrative functions for universities;
- explain functions of governing bodies;
- distinguish the role and function of academic governance;
- describe the process for establishing and managing governing bodies; and
- list administrative considerations for management of universities
Unit 2 – Academic Governance
- describe models of academic governance
- identify processes by which academic programmes are selected and developed;
- describe appropriate student recruitment strategies;
- discuss the importance of balancing research and teaching;
- describe university-appropriate quality enhancement systems;
- explain academic staff development options for your own institution;
- discuss differing approaches to enhancing the student experience;
Unit 3 – HR Autonomy and Accountability
- describe examples of principles of behaviour in public life as set out in various European contexts;
- devise Principles of Public Life appropriate to Palestinian universities;
- identify principles and good practice in public sector recruitment
- discuss the strategic and operational role of HR in the university
Unit 4 – Management Techniques (including strategic planning)
- describe the core components of a strategic plan
- develop appropriate mission and value statements;
- list key considerations for management in considering change;
- outline the key factors in successful implementation of change
- explain how management techniques such as LEAN and root cause analysis can be used in university management
- describe the core components of service re-design
As a result of the online training, the participants will be aware of all governance terminology and have read several good governance frameworks, thus, study visits will be organized to universities at program countries. Hence, 5 representatives from each Palestinian partner university will be selected and arranged in 5 groups, so at least one representative from Palestinian universities, will visit one university from partner countries.
After conducting the study visits to the EU partner universities, a face to face training will be organized at An-Najah National University in Palestine. 16 representatives from each Palestinian university will attend 5 days of training and 2 days of field capacity building at their universities in order to enable participants to conduct self-evaluation using the diagnostic tool and to insure the best application of the evaluation process.
The coordinator for these training activities is the University of Cork in Ireland, however, all other partners (University of Siena, University of Evora and University of Ljubljana) will contribute to the successful execution of the all training activity.
The detailed programme of the online training will be available soon!