International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B6. Istanbul 2004 
clear by the repeated need for upgrading through project 
intervention and support. The major reasons for this 
phenomenon were a lack of research (culture) on which 
programmes were based in combination with a lack of resources 
and communication means for national staff to keep up to date 
with developments world-wide in their knowledge field. 
In the process of building educational capacity in the recipient 
countries as described in sections 1.2, ITC has increasingly 
changed its attention from (the training branches of) 
professional organisations to academic institutions, university 
faculties in particular. This shift was due to the recognition of 
the fact that "institutional sustainability" is of paramount 
importance. 
At the same time, however, ITC itself has also developed a 
position of enhancing scientific sustainability by embedding its 
research programme in an international environment and by 
enhancing its collaboration network with professional 
organisations to keep its relation with "society at large" 
4.4 Certification 
Since the decision by the European ministers of education at the 
Declaration of Bologna in 1999 to introduce the Bachelor- 
Master system throughout Europe, procedures and criteria are 
being developed for the accreditation of the programmes under 
the new system (Section 3.6). Accreditation of programmes 
determines not only official recognition by law of the degree but 
also the funding of these programmes by the Dutch Ministry of 
Education. 
Procedures and criteria of accreditation are still in the process 
of development. They are as yet unclear for programmes that are 
entirely delivered in the Netherlands, while conditions for joint 
programmes seem to be even less clear. 
To address the uncertain policy with respect to accreditation 
and the potential risk that "off-shore" joint programmes may 
have on the accreditation (and hence financing) of those 
programmes entirely organised in the Netherlands, ITC now 
considers to certify those components of joint programmes 
delivered by partner organisations and accept the credits 
accumulated by those partners. 
This certification may also allow expanding the collaboration to 
other partners that have their own ongoing programmes, 
without having a major requirement on ITC resources in terms 
of development and quality assurance. 
4.5 From bilateral to multilateral relationships: GI-NET 
Up till now ITC's joint educational programmes were based on 
bilateral relations between ITC and individual partners. In a 
workshop organised at ITC in December 2003, attended by 27 
representatives of 17 partner institutes on joint educational 
programmes, it was concluded that partnerships should be 
transferred from dependent bilateral relationships, where ITC 
acted as provider and engine to bilateral equi-partnerships, 
where knowledge and experience are exchanged between 
partners through education, research and advisory services and 
finaly to multilateral equi-partnerships. The aim of the 
workshop was to find common ground for developing an 
international network of university-level human resources 
development programmes on geo-information science and earth 
observation in which partners each contribute from their own 
186 
strength. The position of ITC in this network, although initially 
a central node in the network will gradually change to a node of 
equal importance compared to other partners. Eventually at this 
workshop, common ground was found and a name for the 
network accepted, i.e. called GI-NET, Geo-Information 
Network for Education and Training. (Source ITC, 2004). 
5. CONCLUSIONS 
Joint educational programmes address the increasing demand 
for flexibility in academic degree programmes and respond to 
the need for more demand-driven and tailor-made training. 
Moreover they turn out to be much more cost efficient and 
effective. Calculations by ITC for its programmes have revealed 
that from the perspective of the individual course participant (or 
sponsor) joint programmes (at the same quality level as full 
programmes at ITC) may be up to 65% cheaper. From the 
perspective of the Dutch Government as a development 
cooperation donor, joint educational programmes may be up to 
even 75% cheaper compared to having them done entirely in the 
Netherlands. 
6. REFERENCES 
d’ Audretsch, F.C. 1973, The establishment of the Indian Photo- 
interpretation Institute at Dehra Dun 1965-1973. ITC Journal, 
1973-4, pp. 678-726. 
Beerens, S.J.J. and I. ten Dam, Globalization of International 
Education — ITC's challenge of maintaining quality. Paper 
presented at Asian Conference on Remote Sensing in 
Kathmandu, Nepal, December 2002. 
and R. Groot, 2002, Beyond Education: 
GIM International. 
Georgiadou, Y. 
Capacity Building in Geoinformatics” 
February 2002, Volume 16, pp 40-43. 
ITC, 2001, Strategic Plan 2001-2004, 43 pages. ISBN 90 6164 
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ITC, 2004, Building a geo-information community for 
sustainable development: from bilateral to multilateral 
partnerships. /TC News, 2003 — 4, pp 6-8. 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2003. Mutual interests, mutual 
responsibilities: Dutch development cooperation en route to 
2015. 
Molenaar, M. and M.J. Kraak, 2000, Geoinformatica in de ITC 
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Powell, P. and H. Adriaansens, 2004, Internationalisation and 
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Onderwijs & Management, Volume 10, Nummer 1, 2004, pp 
31-36. 
Sinha, Col. J.N. 1976, The Indian Photo-interpretation Institute, 
Dehra Dun, India. ITC Journal 1976-4, pp. 713-721