The Quality Assurance and Accreditation Centre at the University of Bahrain organised the Quality Assurance Forum 2020, held on the 6th of February 2020. This event brought together professionals in the field of Quality Assurance to discuss issues, tackle challenges, share experiences, and explore opportunities for the advancement of Quality Education. 

The theme of this year’s forum was the Sustainability of Learning Outcomes. The objective of the forum was to identify the major challenges for the development of an effective approach to assessing student learning outcomes and come up with ideas on how practitioners and policy makers can respond to these challenges. 

Speakers at the forum included researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and stakeholders with different experiences and background, which offered their perspective on student learning outcomes assessment and what are the best practices across different institutions. 

Among the speakers, Dr. Susanna Karakhanyan, President of INQAAHE, delivered a presentation highlighting the past, present and future in external accreditation. 

Concluding the event was a panel discussion represented by key stakeholders – government, HEIs, labour market representatives, and QA international – to discuss issues around labour market needs and the capacity of HEI and quality assurance to meet the challenges that the era of disruptions causes. The urgency of revamping the HE provisions along with the approaches for external and internal QA was tangible. The call from the INQAAHE President was the HEIs and HE providers need to rethink their role in the overall quality assurance and take a lead and ownership for introducing the necessary changes.  

The forum counted over hundred attendees from Higher Education institutions across the Kingdom of Bahrain, including Dr Jawaher AlMudhahki, Chief Executive of the Education and Training Quality Authority.