Recently, the Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Tony Fitzgerald, invited PASCAL Board member Peter Kearns OAM FACE, to a civic reception at which he presented Peter with a citation for his contribution towards Cork as a lifelong learning city and their UNESCO 3rd International  Conference on Learning Cities in 2016. 

The rapid expansion of universities in the Arab region has brought challenges for higher education quality. Part of the challenge is down to the significant increase in the number of private institutions in the region. Concerns about quality focus a great deal on how to regulate private institutions and creating robust systems for ensuring quality and compliance with national frameworks.