On April 21, 2016, IQAA hosted a seminar conducted by the Director of the Swiss Agency for Accreditation and Quality Assurance (AAQ), Dr. Christoph Grolimund

Dr. Christoph Grolimund has been a Director of the Swiss Agency for Accreditation and Quality Assurance (AAQ) since May, 2010. Also, he holds a position of the Vice-President of ENQA serving on the Board since 2013.

The topic of the seminar was: "Accreditation in the Context of Swiss Higher Education". This seminar was attended by members of the Accreditation Council, representatives of HEIs in Astana, experts, students and staff of the agency. Also, by the means of the video-conference, seminar was attended by representatives of Dulati Taraz State University, University of International Business, M.O.Auezov South Kazakhstan State University, International Information Technologies University, Kazakh-British Technical University and S.Toraigyrov Pavlodar State University.

In his presentation, Dr. Christoph Grolimund shared his experience on quality assurance of education in Switzerland. In particular, his presentation covered the following topics: system of higher education in Switzerland, activities of the Swiss Agency for Accreditation and Quality Assurance (AAQ), and conduct of accreditation. It should be noted that a Director of the Swiss Agency for Accreditation and Quality Assurance (AAQ) highlighted the effective work of the IQAA on accreditation of HEIs in Kazakhstan and pointed to the compliance of the agency with the best European practices on quality assurance in education. Dr. Christoph Grolimund also stated about the importance of the independent assessment of HEIs and self-assessment of their activities, which relate to internal and external quality assurance.

At the end of the seminar, all participants, including representatives of HEIs, who attended the seminar by the means of the video-conference, had an opportunity to address relevant questions to the speaker.

Information about the Swiss Agency for Accreditation and Quality Assurance (AAQ) is available on their official website.