In order to learn about the latest trends of international quality assurance and best practices of international institutions and thereby promote the advancement of the quality of higher education in Macao, Macao Polytechnic Institute (MPI) and the Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN) are jointly organising “The 9^th Higher Education International Conference on the New Developments of Teaching and Learning Quality Assurance in Higher Education”, which will be held at MPI on 22-23 November 2017. The conference will feature keynote speeches by Professor Jianxin Zhang, President of APQN; Professor Luís Filipe Menezes, Vice-Rector of the University of Coimbra, Portugal; Professor José Sarsfield Cabral, Member of the Board of the Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES), Portugal; and Ms Dorte Kristoffersen, Executive Director of the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic & Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ). The conference will also feature a teaching and learning enhancement workshop by Professor Robin Snell, the Director of Service Learning at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, on various issues related to teaching and learning quality and the latest developments in Quality Assurance.

Being the first higher education institution in Asia to have undergone a successful institutional review by the Quality Assurance Agency, UK, MPI has organised the Higher Education International Conference on Quality Assurance annually since 2008 to serve as one of the academic development and training initiatives for its academic staff. This two-day conference will consist of presentations of more than 20 papers by academics and experts coming from countries and regions such as Portugal, Ireland, Japan, Fiji, Mauritius, Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong and Macao on the following conference themes: theories and practices of teaching and learning quality assurance systems, enhancement of teaching and learning in higher education, outcome-based approaches to teaching and learning, learning environment of students, student evaluation of teachers (SET) and teacher self-evaluation (TSE), assessment of students’ professional competence, voice of students to enhance teaching effectiveness, use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in teaching and learning enhancement, professional development for teachers in connection with teaching and students’ learning, quality assurance framework to safeguard and enhance experiences of international students, case studies of teaching and learning quality assurance in higher education with special reference to Asia-Pacific, and other relevant topics related to the conference theme.

The conference opening and keynote sessions will commence at 9:30 am on 22 November 2017 in Lecture Theatre 1 on the first floor of MPI’s Wui Chi Building. The conference will also include a number of parallel sessions. Academics, quality assurance personnel and other interested parties are welcome to attend. More details are available on the conference website: www.ipm.edu.mo/heconf2017. Please contact the conference organiser for seat reservation at saa@ipm.edu.mo.