Exploring a Regional Meta-Approach to Harmonize Quality Assurance and Accreditation for Enhancing the Effectiveness of Public-Private Higher Education Institution Initiatives in Africa

Abstract

The issue of quality assurance, with a focus on accreditation, has lately been put on the policy agenda in African higher education institutions‘ management and academic affairs. Following the initial declaration of harmonization of African Higher Education Ministers in Johannesburg in 2007, quality assurance as a topic has been at the forefront of inspired reform steps in Africa. The quality question has also gradually received more attention in the light of the rapid expansion of-especially private-African higher education institutions. This article investigates the potential of a new approach to accreditation, drawing on existing models from the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom in particular, as well as regional initiatives from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the South African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU)‘s Pan African University (PAU) harmonization project. It will map the so-far common international models before grouping, and, in a second step, combining them with EUAfrican programs and the PAU‘s higher education cooperation kick-off as institutional joint ventures to arrive at a regional meta-approach to accreditation as a starting point for a concept featuring distinctly African elements to be developed. The article illustrates the accomplishments of institutional initiatives and regional cooperation programs, employing both qualitative and quantitative data. The first part of the analysis features the European partnership programs TEMPUS and ERASMUS which involve higher education institution partners in projects aiming at improving the quality of education with tangible outcomes relevant for better institutional governance, quality assurance of academic programs and preparation of graduates for employment at national and regional level. Its South Mediterranean cooperation program will serve as a case study. Further, the example of Maghreb countries, which have strengthened internal quality assurance by developing a regional standard of institutional assessment, AQI-UMED, alongside their own accreditation agency, is introduced as another influence for an innovative approach. In the following, the American Accreditation Board (ABET) is portrayed as a key worldwide accreditor for engineering programs, frequently consulted by African public and private universities, in the absence of program accreditation agencies in the region and the entire continent. Having thereby scanned and linked the five regions‘ potential, the article concludes with the characteristics of a comprehensive reflection covering the needs and specificity of each higher education regional system, to start a discussion on an approach considering an African identity in accreditation.