NISA members visit Engineering College, Al-Nahrain University

Translated from the Arabic report; the original is available as a document.

The UNESCO Iraq Office continues its sustained support for higher education across several fronts within the Higher Education System Rehabilitation project. As part of reforming and developing the core components of Iraq's higher education system, UNESCO Iraq trained teaching staff, in two cohorts drawn from every college of engineering in Iraq's universities, in quality assurance and the writing of Self-Assessment Reports — through activities including SAR workshops held in Doha, Amman and Erbil.

Within this project, Professor Mohamed Al-Rubeai and Professor Riadh Al-Mahaidi of the review group visited the College of Engineering at Al-Nahrain University on 14 October 2014. The purpose was to confirm and verify the information set out in the college's Self-Assessment Report. The visit allowed the review group to observe factors that could not be documented in reports and to verify the reported information. The assessment covered the facilities (laboratories and teaching-support infrastructure); inspection of course documentation (curricula, examinations, textbooks, laboratory reports and past project reports, as available); and meetings with the college and department leaderships, teaching staff, students, and other university personnel such as laboratory supervisors.

Extensive discussions took place with Professor Jassim Al-Dabbagh, Dean of the College, the heads of departments and members of the teaching staff, focusing on benchmark indicators for the quality of the teaching environment and learning outcomes. The team toured the college's facilities and reviewed the documentation on display, including departmental and programme information, statistical data, theses and reports. The review team was satisfied with the range of activities in the visit schedule and considered that the visit provided, in light of what was seen, valuable evidence of the inputs and outputs of the educational programmes. Throughout the visit there was warm engagement from the teaching staff and a clear commitment to the process.