What’s it all for?

Quality assurance and the endeavour to achieve sustainability are important aspects of KulturKontakt Austria’s work. In this respect, KKA is in line with developments at the international level.

In recent years there has been an increasing orientation towards output and knowledge-based decision-making – not only in European education systems. The demands being placed on educational reforms have been subject to the same dynamics. In the case of international educational cooperation, this means not only acting in a demand-oriented and resource-oriented way, but also identifying methods and approaches that focus more strongly on quality and on achieving objectives, and thereby produce results that can be used in future-oriented work.
On the other hand, cultural education – imparting knowledge of art and culture – comprises a growing field of activity with increasing political significance. Here, too, it has been observed at the European level that there is an increasing need for research and evaluation that examines the specific settings, methods and impact of cultural education programmes and projects and offers adequate methods of documentation and presentation.
Evaluation methods are necessary in order to legitimate programmes and to present and verify their value in terms of both quality and quantity. They are also an important requirement for the development of instruments of quality assurance and institutional development.

Sustainability of cultural education

Cultural education as carried out by KKA puts great emphasis on the sustainability of the projects. This makes it necessary to describe the processes of learning and experiencing and the accompanying acquisition of competencies that cultural education can provide. Currently, schools and cultural institutions are testing new forms of sustainable cooperation within the framework of the programme “p[ART]”. The results will be available in May 2010. Evaluation experts from the University of Vienna¹ are examining the success factors for cooperation projects and at the same time supporting the partners in developing their projects together.

Challenges in educational cooperation

If we want to sustainably support educational reforms in our partner countries, we need reflection processes and corresponding quality assurance instruments. This is especially true for the complex environment of international educational cooperation in which KKA works.
Obtaining a clear picture of the dynamic processes involved in developing projects in cooperation with project partners supports the development of meaningful and sustainable planning instruments for educational reforms under constantly changing conditions.  
Finally, we have to ask ourselves not only what a programme has achieved, but also what “material” a clear analysis of previous activities can provide for the future development of our fields of activity, and how this can be utilised to sharpen the profile of the organisation and design relevant new project forms.

¹Department of Economic Psychology, Educational Psychology and Evaluation, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna