The VII Central Asian International Forum on Quality Assurance Education, organised by the Independent Agency for Accreditation and Rating (IAAR), was held in Astana on 6-7 October 2023.

The Forum brought together representatives of international quality assurance networks and heads of higher education institutions from different countries, including Kazakhstan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and others.

On a wide platform discussion of topical issues of development of internal and external quality assurance system of higher education, promotion of quality culture and constructive interaction between the academic community and the international labour market took place.

Amina Mukhambetova, Head of the Department of the Higher Education Development National Centre, candidate of physical-mathematical sciences, made a presentation on "Improving the quality of educational programmes" at the event.

In her speech she emphasised:

"Academic freedom in the formation of programmes gives an opportunity for an unconventional, creative approach to the development of programmes, taking into account regional peculiarities and in cooperation with a wide range of stakeholders. At the moment, 509 educational programmes of 51 OHPEs correlate with 191 professions from the Atlas of  New Professions: some HEIs have updated the existing programmes, other HEIs have opened new educational programmes so that their graduates could master new professions...".