Annual meeting of ACCES project team in Georgia

7. September 2017
Group of people posing for a group picture
The Georgian Technical University (GTU), Tbilisi was the venue for the first annual meeting of the APPEAR project ACCES. The GTU and the BOKU teams, the academic and administrative staff of two universities and public stakeholders came together from 10th to 12th July 2017 having intensive discussions and interactive mutual exchange. The overall objectives of the meeting were reviewing of project progress by the implementation of the current activities and more detailed planning of the forthcoming actions. The project showed a good progress, as most of the scheduled activities for the first project year have already been implemented.

The main focus lay on the propagation of the advanced teaching methods and tools at the university. Seminars on Gender sensitive E-Learning and Didactic in Higher Education was given by the Head of the E-Learning Centre, DI C. Michalek and the BOKU team with target groups and leaderships of the GTU and the Tbilisi Teaching University (TTU) (Photos 1 and 2). The ambition was reaching the intentions shared among a broad audience including teaching staff and management of public and private academic education, government institutions, students and experts from diverse stakeholders.

In frame of the work schedule, there were many round tables and meetings with leading academic staffs organized - Dr. Prof. A. Prangishvili (Rector of the GTU), Dr. Prof. L. Klimiashvili (Vice - Rector of Education), Dr. Prof. G. Dzidziguri (Head of Quality Assurance Service ) (Photo 3) , with Dr., Prof. D. Gurgenidze (Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering), Dr., Prof. M. Javakhishvili (Manager the Quality Assurance Office), Prof. A. G. Aleksidze (President of the Georgian Academy of Agricultural Sciences ) and invited experts from Georgian National Academy of Sciences;  with the leadership of the Tbilisi Teaching University (TTU) - Dr. Prof. D. Gubeladze (Head of Quality assurance service), Dr. T. Jangulashvili (Vice-Rector of International Relations) and its the academic staff (Photo 4).

The topic of the joint discussions among other was the role of the higher ecological education for the development of green skills and competences enabling the graduates to promote green economy and policy. United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) considers green economy as one of the important tools available for achieving sustainable development. The personal opinion of the involved target audience was assessed by collecting of feedbacks and suggestions to be considered in the next project stages: Innovation of the MS of “Water Engineering" and the Development of the MS “Environmental Engineering”. Thus, the ACCES projects will contribute to equip the graduates with high-level knowledge and skills needed for the fast-changing green labor market in Georgia.

ACCES project