Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency

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Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency
Ethiopia
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• Quality Assurance for Enhancement of Higher
  Education in Ethiopia Challenges faced and
• lessons learned
• INQAAHE Abu Dhabi Conference
• 30 March 2 April 2009
• By
• Dr. Tesfaye Teshome, Director General
  of HERQA
• Mr. Kassahun Kebede, Senior
  Expert

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• Part I
• Background

• Ethiopian Government is working to re-
• align its higher education system so that
• it can contribute more directly to its
• national strategy for economic growth and
• poverty reduction.
• There has been a steady increase in the
• number of students in higher education.
• Between 1994 and 2002 alone there was
• a 45 increase. (Ethiopian Federal Ministry of
  Education, 2002)

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• The growth at all levels in higher education, has
  an annual average increase of over 33 per year
• The number of public higher education
  institutions has also grown from only two
  universities eight years ago to more than 20 in
  2008/2009.
• This is due to two national Education Sector
  Development Programs (Ethiopian Federal Ministry
  of Education, 2007).

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• Sensitive to the fact that expansion of numbers
  alone would not satisfy the needs of the
  country, the Agency was established in 2003 with
  the aim of safeguarding and enhancing the quality
  and relevance of higher education in the country.
  
• (Higher Education Proclamation
  no.351/2003)

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• Its missions include
• ensuring accredited HEIs are of an appropriate
  standard
• establishing the programs of study offered by
  these HEIs are of an appropriate quality and
  relevance and
• supporting the countrys higher education sector
  in enhancing the quality and relevance of its
  education provision.

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• Activities undertaken by HERQA to date
• pre-accreditation and accreditation of a programs
  private HEIs
• external quality audits in all the public and
  some private HEIs,
• training of its staff on issues of quality and
  relevance assurance and enhancement

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• convening of consultative and training
• workshops,
• development of draft subject benchmarks and
• the publication of procedures and guidelines and
  quality audit reports

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• The purposes of this paper are therefore to
• describe these activities undertaken for
  enhancing the quality of higher education
• outline the experience of conducting external
  quality audits of HEIs and
• lay out some of challenges it has faced and the
  major lessons it has drawn through the years.

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• Methodology

• Analysis of
• publications of HERQA
• external quality audit reports
• personal experience of the writers

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Institutional Quality Audit and Enhancement

A-Institutional quality audit
Definition An institutional quality audit is an
in-depth analysis and assessment of the quality
and relevance of programs and of the teaching and
learning environment. It assess the
appropriateness and effectiveness of a HEIs
approach to quality care, its systems of
accountability and its internal quality assurance
mechanisms. (HERQA Profile, 2006)
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• Institutional Quality Audit and Enhancement
  undertaken by QAE team.
• External institutional quality audits
• So far 9 public and 5 private HEIs have been
  audited and 8 quality audit reports have been
  published (in addition to 4 pilot audits)

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• 2 Training aimed at enhancing quality enhancement
  and establishing quality assurance systems in the
  HEIs on issues such as
• how to conduct self evaluation,
• preparing policies and guidelines for assessment,
  
• Preparing teaching/learning policies,
• research and outreach activities.
• e.g. In 2008 alone training was provided for
  150 instructors of HEIs, administrators and
  leaders in and outside Addis Ababa, the capital
  of the country.

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• 3, Subject benchmarks developed for
• Nursing,
• midwifery,
• laboratory technology,
• public Health,
• Business Management,
• mathematics,
• chemistry,
• computer science,
• biology,
• medical science and
• agricultural engineering

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B-Accreditation

Pre/accreditation refers to the process of
assessment of an institutions programs by
experts from selected HEIs and HERQA on the basis
of human, material input and other criteria
stated in the Agencys accreditation checklists
with the aim of granting permission for an HEI to
function.
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pre-accredited and accredited Private HEIs from
2006-2008

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pre-accredited and accredited Private HEIs from
2006-2008

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• In addition, the Accreditation team is involved
  in the preparation of
• checklists,
• guidelines and
• training of personnel.
• seven volumes of guidelines, checklists and
  procedures for Pre-accreditation and
  Accreditation are developed with the
  participation of stakeholders.

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Part II Procedures and Outcomes of the External
Institutional Quality Audits

The institutional quality audit proceeds through
a number of stages

1. A self evaluation by the HEI will be prepared.
2. A four day visit to the HEI will be conducted
3. The audit team drafts an audit report.

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4. Further to the issue of the external
institutional quality audit report, the HEI
is asked to prepare an action plan that
seeks to enhance the quality and relevance
of its provision.
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5. HERQA requests a copy of this plan and
monitors its implementation in
subsequent institutional quality audits
which evaluate the extent to which the HEI has
been able to use its action plan to enhance
quality and relevance.

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• HERQA has conducted 18 external institutional
  quality audits on 11 public and 7 private HEIs,
• completed and published the reports for 8 public
  universities and
• Completed 4 reports and sent to the audited HEIs
  for feedback

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Some of the major outcomes of the quality audits

• 1.Quality Assurance System or Mechanisms
• The audited HEIs are aware of the necessity of
  assuring quality in the institutions.
• Some of them plan to establish a quality
  assurance office
• Problems
• The quality assurance system or mechanisms are
  not fully in place
• In some of the HEIs systems for obtaining data
  that can be used to judge the quality of the
  institutions are not fully in place

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2-Assessment

• There is effort on the part of audited HEIs
  through ADRCs to help instructors develop
  sufficient assessment skills.
• In some of the HEIs
• assessment units are established at the
• department and faculty level.
• Problems
• assessments are mostly dominated by norm
• referencing.
• assessments are not sufficiently transparent.
• assessments are dominated by mid semester and
  end-of-semester examinations.

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3-Curriculum Review and Design Procedures

• all the audited HEIs do engage in curriculum
  
• development
• Some involve external peers and other
  stakeholders when they consider they lack the
  necessary expertise

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4-Research and Outreach Activities

• All of the audited HEIs
• aspire to contribute to the development of the
  country through problem solving researches
• have firm convictions that research plays a
  crucial role in developing the economy

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research

• have Research and Publication officers
• Some of them have developed
• research policies
• guidelines and
• various journals
• have created links and research collaborations
  within Ethiopia and abroad

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research

• problems
• heavy teaching loads and responsibilities
• lack of sufficient time to engage in research
• insufficient budget for research
• Insufficient research skills on the part of young
  instructors

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5-Infrastructure and Resources

• There is a huge investment in all the audited
  HEIs in
• Buildings
• infrastructure
• laboratory equipment and
• other resources
• problems
• lack of sound systems to ensure efficient
  resource management
• a lack in systemic management and maintenance of
  these resources

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6-Expertise and Experience of staff

• All the audited HEIs
• are actively engaged in helping instructors
  improve teaching and research skills
• Budgets are allocated for training
• Instructors receive training in and out side the
  country

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• problems
• Some of the instructors are fresh graduates
  from the
• universities (due to the HE expansion process)
• Heavy load of teaching on the part of instructors
  has
• made it difficult for the experienced
  instructors to share
• their knowledge and skills in teaching and
  research areas.

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Part Three
Conclusions, Challenges and Lessons Learned

• Conclusion
• There is a huge investment on the part of
• the government and
• the private HEI owners
• HERQA has been established in order reduce
• the impact of quality problems that may arise
• due to the expansion process in 2003 with
• Proclamation Number 351/2003.

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• HERQA has helped to bring quality to the top of
  the agenda,
• it has been successful in engaging with higher
  educational institutions to carry out quality
  audits and
• it has contributed significantly to
• enhancing the quality of higher
• education in
• Ethiopia.
• .

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Challenges

• a/ There is a general lack of expertise and
  experience in quality assurance related matters
  in HEIs. This impacts on the work of HERQA as it
  seeks credible individuals
• to be trained as external quality auditors and
• to be involved in program accreditation.

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• b/ HERQA is expected to work harder as
• few higher education institutions have
• accommodated an explicit quality assurance
• function within their legislation
• few higher education institutions have quality
• assurance policy or strategy.
• a number of higher education institutions
• have set up quality assurance units but these
  are
• very much in their infancy and are just becoming
  
• functional.

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• Most of the audited higher education
  institutions do not have quality assurance
  policy or strategy.
• a number of higher education institutions
• have set up quality assurance units but
• these are very much in their infancy and are
• just becoming functional.

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• Lessons Learned

• The importance of communicating with
• stakeholders and getting feedback from them.
• The importance of being an agent of distribution
  of
• good practices gained from one institution to
  the
• others and
• The importance of being a forum for discussions
  
• on quality and quality assurance.

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• The importance of developing a mechanism to
• check the move of some fraudulent HEIs( like
  
• surprise visits).
• The importance of working harder to build the
• capacity of HEIs in establishing quality
  assurance
• management systems.

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Thank You