Quality Assurance in Ethiopian Higher Education: Procedures and Practices

Adamu, Abebaw Yirga; Addamu, Aster Minwyelet

doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.12.006

Cited by 26 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…But as an incipient experiment, it was clear that attaining autonomy in the short term was impossible, ineffective and undesirable; for the IQA unit and system to function, direct support from the leadership is a necessity, both in terms of morale and resources. UEM's situation calls for caution when supporting the idea that national and institutional QA units need autonomy to function effectively, as often argued (Hayward, 2006;Materu, 2007;Adamu and Adamu, 2012). We agree that QA units need autonomy to collect reliable data, make independent analyses and inform unbiased strategic…”

Section: Structure and Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…The third challenge concerns the participation of different stakeholders in the process, particularly external constituencies, such as professional bodies and employers; but, in some circumstances, the involvement of internal stakeholders, particularly students, is ineffective, as in some private universities in Ghana (Ntim, 2014). The fourth challenge is the lack of autonomy: the financial dependency of national QA agencies on governments makes them susceptible to political interference (Materu, 2007;Hayward, 2006); likewise, the dependency of IQA units on the senior leadership may undermine their improvement and accountability missions (Adamu and Adamu, 2012). The challenge of autonomy is exacerbated by the perception that national QA agencies oversee private HEIs, whereas public HEIs may be exempted from control (Ogachi, 2009).…”

Section: Establishment Of a Qa System In Mozambiquementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The quality issue has been a permanent concern of the academic ethos since early universities (Van Vaught, 1995). What is new is the centrality of the HEIs may internally accredit programmes (Adamu and Adamu, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other institutions, quality departments are in the process of being established, as at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria (Müller et al 2012). However, there are still cases in which self-assessment is undertaken by ad-hoc committees, like at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia (Adamu and Adamu, 2012) and at the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, and Stellenbosch University in South Africa (Botha et al 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research seems to have focused on cross-national or national QA systems, rather than on institutional systems. The features of QA systems established within HEIs have often been examined as part of national or regional systems, but few studies have focused on internal QA (IQA) systems established within single HEIs (Rosa and Amaral, 2007;Sursock, 2011;Nguyen, 2012;Adamu and Adamu, 2012). Studies on IQA systems have often targeted several HEIs, but rarely single HEIs.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Main Features and Challenges of Implementing Internal Quality Assurance Within African Higher Education Institutions: The Case of Eduardo Mondlane University

Zavale¹,

Santos²,

Dias³

2016

IJAHE

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Founded in 1962, Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), Mozambique's largest and most prestigious university, established an Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) system for the first time in 2013. Based on UEM's case, this paper examines the features and challenges faced when implementing an IQA system within African higher education institutions. Literature on higher education quality assurance has widely examined the features of, and challenges faced by national QA systems, or by a QA system established across several higher education institutions (HEIs). However, this literature has rarely targeted single HEIs, particularly (African) HEIs that are establishing, for the first time, their IQA systems. Besides, even when IQA at a single HEI is targeted, this is often done by outsiders. Based on reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action, this paper addresses the perspectives of both insiders and outsiders. The authors analyse a system that they have been involved in establishing. The paper's findings enable to conclude that the main challenges of implementing an IQA system in an African HEI are associated with linking QA to decision-making and to a funding strategy; training human resources and allocating funds for the system to operate and to be sustainable; enabling the system to be assimilated by the university community; and defining measurable and objective quality standards to enable unbiased performance classification.103 quality issue as a key higher education (HE) steering policy. Since the 1980s, developed countries have established systematic quality policies. Several factors accounted for this policy shift, including (i) massification of HE; (ii) loss of confidence on the capacity of HE to maintain high standards and meet the demands of a competitive labour market; (iii) decline in government funding and increasing demand for accountability of HE; (iv) rapid growth of HE private sector and emergence of new public management; and (v) increasingly competitive HE system (Van Damme, 2002;Rosa and Amaral, 2007). In Africa, the quality issue as a key national HE steering policy is also a new phenomenon: the majority of quality assurance (QA) agencies were established after 1990s. By 2012, about 21 African countries had established QA agencies, and a dozen other countries were moving in this direction (Shabani et al.

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Section: Structure and Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 84%