INQAAHE Talks on September 28, 2023
Navigating the Future of Learning: Recognizing Micro-Credentials
September 28, 2023 (Thursday)
9:00 – 10:30 CEST/UTC+2
Online (via Zoom)
In today’s dynamic educational and professional landscape, the recognition of short-learning programs (or micro-credentials) is a paramount issue with far-reaching implications. This topic transcends the boundaries of traditional academia as it acknowledges the critical role of employers and industry in shaping and delivering lifelong learning opportunities, and requires a reconceptualization of recognition of education and training through transparent signalling.
The role of quality assurance in supporting the integration of micro-credentials into the traditional higher education landscape is critical, and as QA and tertiary education stakeholders, we humbly acknowledge the novelty and intricacy of the micro-credential challenges that encompass tertiary education – particularly in credit recognition.
This INQAAHE Talks thus sought to foster a dialogue among QA practitioners from diverse regions: Hong Kong-China, Japan, the European Higher Education Area and Ontario-Canada. Over 90 minutes, we will shed light on the efforts of tertiary education institutions, policymakers, and QA organizations, who are diligently working to craft frameworks and guidelines that enhance the recognition and uphold the quality of micro-credentials.
On the 28th of September, 2023, let’s explore and learn collectively on the new challenges of Micro-credentials!
The session was moderated by Mr. Fabrice Hénard, INQAAHE Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
The recording of this session is available on INQAAHE’s YouTube channel.
The following speakers joined us in this session:
Dr. Christina Ng
Dr Christina Ng has over 30 years of experience in education and training. Trained as an education professional, Dr. Ng has extensive teaching experience in universities, including Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, City University of Hong Kong and the Education University of Hong Kong.
In HKCAAVQ, which is the accreditation authority in Hong Kong, she was Head of the Vocational & Professional Qualifications Accreditation unit for 10 years and she is now focusing her work on corporate development of the Council. Prior to joining HKCAAVQ, she was a Senior Manager at the Employees Retraining Board of Hong Kong, responsible for the development and management of over 700 vocational programmes. Her specialization is quality assurance and management.
Dr. Esther Huertas
Esther Huertas is the Head of the Quality Assurance Department at AQU Catalunya, the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency. Previously, she served as a researcher at the University of Barcelona and followed her professional activity as an assistant professor at the same University. Huertas is an Agronomist Engineer and has a degree in Food Science and Technology. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Barcelona.
Huertas has a broad experience in the accreditation of programmes and institutions with special focus on e-learning. She was the chair of ENQA’s working group on quality assurance and e-learning and the work package leader of quality assurance in online higher education in TeSLA project – Trust-based authentication & authorship e-assessment analysis (https://tesla-project.eu/). Besides, she is a member of ENQA working group on microcredentials and their quality assurance. She is also involved in international activities, participating in different groups of discussion focused on quality assurance. Nowadays she is a member of the Agency Review Committee of ENQA.
Dr. Mary Catharine Lennon
Mary Catharine Lennon, PhD, has an academic and professional background in international and comparative higher education research and policy development in areas including system design, accountability, quality assurance, and evaluation. She is the Head of Research and Special Projects at the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board of Ontario (PEQAB), a Board Director of the International Network of Quality Assurance in Higher Education (INQAAHE) and also chairs the Marjorie Lenn Peace Centre for Education and Capacity Building in Quality Assurance. Dr. Lennon holds degrees from Queen’s University, Simon Fraser University and OISE/University of Toronto.
Prof. Rie Mori
MORI Rie is Professor at the National Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality Enhancement of Higher Education (NIAD-QE). She earned BA and MA from Waseda University and joined National Institution for Academic Degrees (NIAD) before its reorganization to NIAD-QE as Research Fellow. Her prime research interest is the accreditation of higher education institutions that ensures the legitimacy of higher education credentials, including degrees earned in nontraditional ways such as personal credit-hour accumulation.
She was a visiting researcher at the New England Association for Schools and Colleges (now New England Commission of Higher Education) and Boston College (2004-5).
This session was moderated by:
Mr. Fabrice Hénard
Mr. Fabrice HENARD is the CEO of INQAAHE. He is a global expert in tertiary education and quality assurance as an evaluator, trainer, facilitator or policy advisor. He brings to INQAAHE the experience he gained working for The French Evaluation Agency for Research and Higher Education and the OECD Tertiary Education Program. As an expert, he has carried out more than 100 assignments for Unesco, World Bank, OECD, European Union, tertiary education institutions, ministries, university networks in some 45 countries and has chaired several expert panels in Europe and the Mena region. Since 2013, he is the Secretary General of the Accreditation Committee of Luxembourg, education expert for the European Commission and he was a member of the Albanian Accreditation Committee 2017-2022. He leads the modules on Education Policy in the South at Sciences Po Paris, Master in International Development.
