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The purpose of the workshop was to present the results of the project up to now, including the studies conducted via surveys and interviews with Bulgarian higher education institutions regarding the use of micro-credentials in their programs for higher education in Bulgaria, also to exchange experience gained in our country and to discuss challenges and opportunities identified as well as existing national and international initiatives.
Participants in the workshop were introduced with the project’s goals, deadlines and expected results, general and detailed information was presented, including concerning one of the two main documents of the project, the Comparative Report about the use of course catalogs and micro-credentials in the project partner countries.
The participants in the workshop had the opportunity to share their experience regarding micro-credentials, the benefits and opportunities of using them, the challenges associated with them, as well as to specify their ideas and recommendations for more effective implementation and use of micro-credentials in their higher education programs, which are supposed to be included in the Bulgarian part of the second project document, mainly Guidelines for improving course catalogs from the point of view of academic recognition, again with an emphasis on micro-credentials./p>
The panel discussion started with a set of questions among representatives of Bulgarian higher education institutions and participants which aimed to provide them opportunity to sheare their point of view, including: existing practices for implementation of smaller learning units and microcredentials, challenges identified for broader implementation of microcredentials, reccomendations for resolving any challenges identified, specific university approaches for wider introducing of microcredentials, as well as information due to be publicly available on the university web sites about microcredentials, which would support their visibility, transparency and follow-up academic recognition.
The main positive conclusion was admitting the fact that the lack of national legislation is rather an advantage and not an obstacle for the implementation and use of micro-credentials in university programs for higher education.
On the other hand, one of the challenges mentioned was the lack of an appropriate state recognized document to play the role of a final qualification for micro-credentials among the existing set of educational documents in the system of higher education in Bulgaria, especially bearing in mind the fact that students, wishing to complete smaller learning units leading to micro-credentials, would expect to acquire a final micro-credential qualification which is recognized by the state.
Initially 44 participants registered for participation in the workshop, 33 of them took part, with 18 of them being representatives of Bulgarian higher education institutions.
The agenda of the workshop included also information on the results of the Council of Europe's first European online consultation on automatic mutual recognition with view of the growing importance of the topic Europe-wide. The was held with the participation of over 250 European higher education institutions on 15 March 2024 with presentation of the current state of the art and discussions, showing the points of view of the European universities on the advantages and challenges related to the possible application of automatic mutual recognition for the purpose of access to further education as set out in the Council Recommendation of 26 November 2018 (Council Recommendation on the promotion of the automatic mutual recognition of higher education and upper secondary qualifications and training qualifications and the results of periods of study abroad in 2018 ). The participants in the OCTRA-2 project workshop were informed about the progress on the concept of automatic mutual recognition as presented on the consultations, the existing challenges and measures to overcome them, as well as the point of view of European higher education institutions on the subject. Detailed information about the conducted European online consultation of the Council of Europe with higher schools from the European Higher Education Area is available here: (https://nacid.bg/bg/vuz/vuz_page_1/)
The full agenda of the online national workshop was the following:
OCTRA 2 - Transparency and Recognition Online Program Catalogs and Database 2
project No. 101101695 - OCTRA 2 – ERASMUS - EDU -2022- NARIC - IBA
National workshop
Host: National Center for Information and Documentation (NACID) Chairman: Kostadin Tonev, Director of the Directorate "Academic Recognition and Regulated Professions" (NACID)
| Time | Topic |
| 10:00 -10:05 | Opening of the workshop - Ms. Vanya Grashkina, executive director of the National Center for Information and Documentation (NACID) |
| 10:05 -10:15 | Micro-credentials on the agenda of the Bologna Process - Ms. Ivana Radonova, representative of the Republic of Bulgaria in the Bologna Process Development Group BFUG, (MES) |
| 10:15 -10:25 | OCTRA 2 project: goals, activities and expected results - Kirilka Kirova, junior expert in the Directorate "Academic Recognition and Regulated Professions" (NACID) |
| 10:25 - 10:55 | OCTRA 2 Project: General Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations to Date: Comparative Report and Guidelines - Kostadin Tonev, Director of the Academic Recognition and Regulated Professions Directorate (NACID) |
| 10:55 -11:05 | OCTRA 2 Project: report on Bulgaria - Ani Metodieva, senior expert in the Directorate "Academic Recognition and Regulated Professions" (NACID) |
| 11:05 -12:05 | Discussion about existing practices, challenges, recommendations for overcoming them and approaches for the wider use of micro-credentials from the Bulgarian point of view higher schools - led by: Kostadin Tonev, Director of the Directorate "Academic Recognition and Regulated Professions" (NACID) |
| 12:05 -12:15 | First pan-European consultations of the Council of Europe with higher education institutions on mutual automatic recognition, March 15, 2024 - Boryana Yanakieva, chief expert in the Directorate "Academic Recognition and Regulated Professions" (NACID) |
| 12:15 | Closing the workshop |
