Tempus Geoinformatics: successful Project Management meeting in Almaty

Embedded within a full week of teacher training and the annual GIS-in-Central-Asia conference (GISCA 2011), partners in the Tempus project "Geoinformatics: Managing Energy, Resources, Environment - GEM" met for a key management meeting at the Kazakh National University named after Al-Farabi in Almaty.

The seven Central Asian partner universities together with their European counterparts from Hungary, Netherlands and Austria decided on a future international curriculum framework which will for the basis for implementing Master's level study programmes across Central Asia. After national level accreditation it is expected that two universities -KSUCTA in Bishkek and KazNU in Almaty- will launch their programmes already in the fall of 2011, with other institutions following at a later date.

The Kazakh National Tempus Office Coordinator, Ms Shaizada Tasbulatova highlighted during her GISCA opening remarks the importance of technical qualifications and the early adoption of Bologna frameworks in Kazakhstan, as well as the substantial challenges faced by the implementation of new study programmes. All meeting participants returned with a strong sense of success and progress, while acknowledging the need for hard work over the coming months to fully reach the project's objectives.