Oman Authority for Academic Accreditation and Quality Assurance for Education (OAAAQA) organised a two-day training workshop for 16 participants in General Foundation Programme Quality Audit (GFPQA). They attended the sessions as a mandatory part of their application to become an External Reviewer (ER) on the OAAAQA Register of ERs and their performance was evaluated accordingly.
The workshop aimed to enable participants to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to become effective ERs for the OAAAQA GFPQA process. To this end, sessions, which were delivered by Dr Jenny Walker and former quality assurance experts with OAAAQA: Dr Ali Al Hassnawi, Dr Rabi’ee Al Rashdi and Ms Gargi Chugh, covered the general context of the GFPQA in terms of the overall national quality assurance system of higher education; they also introduced the GFPQA Manual, timeline and key stages of the GFPQA process, covered the role of panel members during various stages of the GFPQA and the skills involved and helped participants to apply ADRI to critically read, analysis and evaluate a GFPQA Application. Practical sessions took place on formulating appropriate commentary and awarding preliminary ratings and trainees simulated a GFPQA interview.
All trainees were successful in completing the training and Dr Jenny Walker, Consultant to the CEO on Technical Affairs, gave certificates to each of the workshop participants. In her closing remarks, she emphasised the importance of ERs in the quality assurance processes of OAAAQA and thanked all participants for their commitment to the OAAAQA mission and their hard work and enthusiasm in making the two days of training a fruitful experience.