Development of the Manual for the development and use of Qualifications and Occupational Standards in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Manual would be developed based on the work from 5 working groups of the component 2 of the current project, previous work done on QF development in BiH and experience from other countries. The guidelines would be developed in accordance with the draft of the Action plan for QF-BiH.

This document will place the guidelines in the context of the HE development work including:

• Proposal of the BiH Action plan for implementation of Qualifications Frameworks in BiH.
• Previous joint EU/CoE projects (and results thereof) on higher education in BiH SHE I-III; current project outputs and experience; BiH Qualifications Framework; latest priorities/pronouncements of the EHEA Ministerial Conference May 2015 in Armenia. In addition linkages should be made to the BiH 2011 publication 'Curriculum Development Good Practice Guide' and two previous BiH projects: “Roadmap for the development of occupational Standards for all occupations” and “BiH Impact assessment of Vocational and Training reform” and current TEMPUS project “BiH Higher Education Qualifications Framework”.
• Purposes and status of the guidelines for QS and OS;
• Application of the two sets of guidelines by BiH authorities (target groups): ministries responsible for education in BiH, Agency for Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance in BiH, Higher Education Accreditation Agency of Republika Srpska; Centre for Information and Recognition of Qualifications in Higher Education of BiH; higher education institutions (public and private), employers/industry.
• Explanation of the process by which the project produced Qualification Standards and Occupation Standards.
• Recommendations for the further development and successful application of guidelines including (pre-requisite for success):
  • Good practice process for the identification of new standards (QS and OS)
  • Level of minimum support, agreement, internal policy commitments required for any successful implementation from individual Rectors and HEIs;
  • Resource requirements + minimum support by ministries, cantons, HEIs, institutions and official bodies, etc.
  • Identification of priority areas for future development.
  • Different ownership and review responsibility for QS and OS.
  • Requirement for the development in BiH of appropriate industry/employer bodies (e.g. Sectoral Bodies, Professional Bodies, Skills Councils', Employer input, etc) to support the development of effective OS and QS.
  • The respective roles of different stakeholders in the production of QS and OS.
  • Good practice process for the verification of standards and review cycles.
  • Good practice process in 'training the trainers' for the development of QS and OS.
  • Next steps.
  • Annex - Examples of 5 Qualifications Standards (QS) + who was involved (individuals and institutions) in their production.
  • Annex - Examples of 2 Occupational Standards (OS) + who was involved (individuals and institutions) in their production.