Designing our curriculum

I have been so busy working on recruitment and on "building the brand" of the International Business College Mitrovica in recent weeks that most of my posts have been diary events and I seem to have drifted off telling the background story of how we have got where we are today.  In this post I want to talk about the curriculum that we are offering and how this decision, that is central to defining the character of the IBCM, was made.

In March of 2009 a study mission was undertaken by four international experts in higher education and they spend some time in Kosovo looking at how tertiary education was developing here and where gaps in delivery could be identified.  They worked from the basis that these are three main objectives for the IBCM:

1. Private sector development and job creation to meet the needs of the labour market
2. Potential integration within the European Union (EU)
3. Bridging the communities in Mitrovica in the medium to long term 

The authors came to the conclusion that there was a paucity of data on what they called the "market" for higher education in Kosovo but they identified the fields of Business Studies, Public Administration and Environmental Protection as areas in which skills are and would be needed in the future as the Kosovan economy develops.  They also felt that entry to the Kosovo work place occured most frequently after the completion of Bachelors or Masters degrees but the team formed the impression that graduates often lacked general skills that are required in the work place in the early 21st Century.

The authors concluded that an institution positioned at Level 5B of the UNESCO International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) would go some way to filling an obvious gap in tertiary education provision.  The team drew attention to the UNESCO outline of the distinguishing features of a "5B" programme which says that:

"...the distinction between long stream and short stream programmes is very important.  The long stream programmes (5A) are more theoretical and can lead to advanced research programmes or a profession with high skill requirements. The short streams (5B) are more practically oriented." UNESCO, ISCED, 1997, Para 85.

The authors made a very clear recommendation that the International Business College Mitrovica focus on delivering programmes in English, as a unifying language and that a flexible curriculum be offered to ensure continued relevance to a broad range of potential students from various communities and countries in the region.  They recommended a diploma course as a foundation with the option to "top-up" to a Bachelors degree.  Importantly, there was a clear view that the IBCM should aim at house style that would be based on student centred learning and participative teaching.

This approach represents a very big step in the environment of Mitrovica but I am confident that today, as we teach exclusively in English and as we offer a 120 ECTS Diploma course with a possible top-up of 90 ECTS to a Bachelors degree in Business Studies, Public Administration and Agriculture with Envionmental Protection, that we have laid the foundations for a truly high quality, internationally oriented curriculum.