The Institute of Education Policy is starting to function at Khazar University as a new think-tank in the field of Education. The main aim of the Institute is to study international practices in education, work on quality enhancement of education and problems related to its evaluation, find out ways of development of educational policy and education system in Azerbaijan, and particularly, closely watch the Bologna Process and assist those interested in its furthering.

Among general activities of the Institute are research, conferences and workshops, faculty development, etc. There are also certain specific projects on such important educational issues as the academic quality assurance and accreditation; curriculum development; teaching, learning and assessment; teacher training; distance learning; library research and training; education administration; university management; comparative education; and history and philosophy of education.

Some other centers of Khazar University, such as Academic Quality Assurance Center, Teacher Training Center, Distance Learning Center and Center for Library and Information Studies are effectively functioning in affiliation with the Institute of Education Policy. Moreover, Center for Economic and Business Research and Education is affiliated with the School of Economics and Management as well as with the Institute of Education Policy.

Center for Library and Information Studies

The Center for Library and Information Studies (CLIS) addresses an urgent need of the contemporary Azerbaijani society to reconsider the stereotype of the last decade, of the library lagging behind, into the library as a gateway to knowledge, and librarians as the gatekeepers.
It offers special training programs in the form of intensive seminars, lecture series and workshops, summer schools, consultations, etc. International consultants, in collaboration with the Khazar faculty members, develop curriculum taking into consideration current Western experience in the field as well as local tradition and context. It helps not only to explore key professional issues, but also to learn about practical procedures and processes and facilitates further cooperative projects.
Proposed training implies serving different target groups, including in-service training and certificate programs for professionals, retraining of other professional groups, and more.

Members of the Center carry out research and consultancy for library and information services, and for other information and advice agencies in public and non-government sectors. On-site training programs covering most aspects of library and information activities are also provided to meet the requirements of individual organizations.

Teacher Training Center

Khazar Teacher Training Center (TTC) was established to strengthen the community services provided for high school and university level teachers and trainers.
The current situation with in-service education in Azerbaijan deals with the following problems:

• unsatisfactory quality of trainers at the existing in-service institutions in Azerbaijan

• passive teaching strategies

• content orientation methodology, rather than process

• out-of-date classroom practices

• weakening of the public sector role in education

Thus, the Khazar TTC sees its main objectives as follows:

• providing staff development to teachers
working with Azerbaijani educators to prepare/train them to conduct teacher staff development in the areas of active learning and critical thinking

• helping the incorporation of active learning and critical thinking strategies into the existing curriculum used in Azerbaijani schools

• acquainting the international educators community with the current state of in-service education

• developing childhood education and training strategies and applying them in the "Dunya" lab school of Khazar University
The Center is developing its prospective plans in close collaboration with the international network of educators, conducting staff development on active learning and critical thinking, and modeling strategies for Azerbaijani educators in a trainer-of-trainers or cascade model. The TTC provides training both for faculty members and teachers from other institutions.

Academic Quality Assurance Center

Quality in education is a system of values, a position and a culture. It is the changing of the existing form and permanence of the evolutionary efforts. Quality is a process, and therefore, the concept of quality enhancement is something more important than just quality assurance and quality control.

The Academic Quality Assurance Center within Khazar University was established in November 1999, under the framework of Tempus Tacis Compact Project 1999-2001. The University of California in Los Angeles, Princeton University, Harvard University, and other universities continuously share their experience with faculty and staff members of KU in academic quality techniques and procedures.

The Quality Assurance Center, supported by appropriately trained staff, enhances the processes of academic quality assurance in three areas (i) Curricula Validation and Review, (ii) Student Learning, Teaching and Assessment, (iii) Staff Development and Appraisal. This enables Khazar University to be established and recognized according to the academic standards within the European Union and beyond.

Azerbaijan, in common with the other states of the Former Soviet Union, had a history of commitment to higher education. That commitment was, however, a commitment to a relatively rigid process, with minimal scope for institutional innovation, initiative and self-reliance. Furthermore, teaching was fundamentally didactic in form with little attention being paid to the learning needs and processes of the students.

This is now changing. Indeed, perhaps led by the potential of Azerbaijan's oil and other material resources, it is at the forefront of substantial economic and social development including higher education. But such a transformation is not easily accomplished in the short term and is hindered by the lack of internal financial resources presently available to the Education sector. There is a major need within Azerbaijani higher education for opportunities to 'learn by example' according to international 'best practice'. Therefore, this Center is established to impact on the national context through both direct application within Khazar University and wider application through the processes of dissemination.

The Center for Academic Quality Assurance is intended to support Khazar University in developing its own rigorous framework concerning admissions, program design, approval and review, teaching and learning processes, student support, communication and representation, assessment and external examining, and staffing. Academic quality assurance reflects the current 'best practice' in the European, United States and other education systems. In this way, the Khazar University community can track the most recent developments, and the experience of how these developments might be best applied elsewhere, and disseminated to a wider audience.

Khazar University regularly conducts internal evaluation with active participation of students and results of the evaluation are published both on paper and electronically.