After Brussels and Ghent, the delegation of rectors and academics from the Central Asian universities stops off in Pisa. They are travelling around Europe for the first "training visit" organized in the framework of «TuCAHEA», a project designed to find ways to reform the organizational and operational models of the university systems of that region, in order to make them compatible with each other and aligned with those of the European Higher Educational Area. The TuCAHEA acronym stands for "Towards a Central Asian Higher Education Area: Tuning Structures and Building Quality Culture".
The guests – who come from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – were greeted in the Rectorate by pro-rectors Alessandra Guidi and Marco Guidi. After the Pisan leg of their journey, the delegation will go to Rome for an official visit to the CRUI, the Italian Rectors' Conference.
TuCAHEA is supported financially and morally by the European Commission, in the framework of its TEMPUS programme, as a 'structural measures' project. It includes universities and ministries of the five republics of the ex-Soviet area, each with its own culture, history and language. TuCAHEA's objective is to create an area for higher (CAHEA, Central Asian Higher Education Area) compatible with the European area (EHEA, European Higher Education Area), using the "Tuning" methodology. The project is an important attempt to utilise the opportunities offered by European financing in order to modernise university systems on a macro-regional scale. The grantholding university, responsible for the financial and administrative aspects of the project, is the University of Groningen (www.rug.nl), whereas Pisa is responsible for the scientific and academic coordination, entrusted to Prof. Ann Katherine Isaacs, assisted by Dr. Viktoriya Kolp Panchenko.
The TuCAHEA Consortium comprises 47 partners, including the Ministries of Education of the five republics, 8 European and 35 Central Asian universities. The project, awarded a contribution of 1,3 million euros, began in October 2012 and will continue until October 2015. "Tuning Educational Structures", thanks to numerous projects in which the University of Pisa has been a member, is now a worldwide 'Process' in which university systems from all over the world -- including Europe, Africa, Latin America, the USA and China – participate. (http://www.unideusto.org/tuningeu).
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They have written about it:
The European Voice
TirrenoPisa.it
PisaInformaFlash.it