Need to strengthen African standards and guidelines for quality assurance in higher education with quantitative quality assessment criteria

Abstract

Quality assurance (QA) in higher education has become a global phenomenon. It can simply be defined as a planned and systematic process which is put in place by an institution to ensure that its inputs, processes, outputs, and outcomes meet expectations and/or specified requirements. While there is no consensus on the definition of quality of education, it has been variously defined as: fitness for purpose and/or fitness of purpose, being exceptional when an institution exceeds minimum stipulated standards, meeting stakeholders’ stated or implied needs, value for money and continuous improvement. The purpose of QA is therefore to achieve quality education as previously defined. The growth of QA in higher education was due to several factors such as the massification of higher education, privatisation, competition, the emergence of several modes of higher education delivery, the advent of diploma mills, deterioration in higher education standards and cross border education. As part of global growth in QA, continental and world-wide external quality assurance agencies (EQAA) and standards have been set up. For example, European countries came together to establish the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) in 2000. ENQA then developed the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG-QA) in 2005. Recently, the African Union collaborated with its partners to establish the African Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance for Higher Education (ASG-QA). The African Union endorsed the ASG-QA for use in 2019. The ASG-QA are a set of standards and guidelines for internal and external QA in higher education. They were developed to provide a shared understanding of QA systems among all stakeholders at national, regional and continental level. They are also meant to support higher education institutions to nurture a sustainable quality culture through a unified QA framework.