In the modern world, when labor market requirements are constantly changing, specific requirements have emerged in respect of the education system; a person should be able to obtain necessary qualification or retraining at any age without any obstacles. Just therefore the Bologna process made fundamental changes to the education sphere and started to introduce a concept of continuing education. According to the Bologna process, introduction of the principle of continuing education should become a significant part of the university missions and strategies.
To promote the implementation of continuing education programs, the Center for Academic Development and Continuing Education was established at TSU. The main activities of the Center are to provide administrative services to continuing education programs and to organize various training and seminars to train the university’s academic and administrative personnel.
Programs of academic development and continuing education can be divided into two categories:
internal continuing education and
society-wide continuing education.
Internal continuing education aims at organizing various events for training TSU academic and administrative personnel and recruits.
Society-wide continuing education: Stemming from Georgian market demands, TSU offers the society various long and short-term courses/trainings/programs to develop general or specific professional skills. The range of the available courses can be rather wide due to the university’s specification.
Along with continuing education programs, currently, 13 accredited programs for teachers’ professional development operate at TSU.
At present, TSU participates in the project SIRUS (Shaping Inclusive and Responsive University Strategies) organized by European universities and partner organizations. The project SIRUS promotes the development and implementation of continuing education strategies at the participant universities. 29 universities from 18 participant countries are involved in the project.