Creating University Autonomy

• In Event: Thirteen years of higher education development in Afghanistan – the challenge of sustainability

Proposal

The highly centralized higher education of Afghanistan is not responsive to the quality expansion, job market, and globalization needs of the country World Bank (2014). Public universities lack the required academic administrative, and financial autonomy to meet these needs, as the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) controls the higher education system and oversees almost every decision made by public institutions (Berger & Thoma, 2015).

Prior to 2014 there was no clear strategy for increased autonomy for individual public higher education institutions in Afghanistan. A great deal of effort has since been invested in the improvement of policy frameworks that provide a system-wide approach for developing increased autonomy. These frameworks serve as an important foundation for moving on to the development and implementation of (a) procedures and infrastructure for implementing university autonomy policies and (b) enhanced human capacity in the MoHE and the constituent university campuses. Recent efforts have been implemented by USWDP to improve the capacity of Afghan universities to become more autonomous in three strategic areas: academic, administrative, and financial. The presentation will address each of these areas and the related sustainability issues.

USWDP has worked with the MoHE and select public universities on different levels and fronts to support granting increased autonomy to public institutions. At the Macro level, these efforts include working with the MoHE on the development of financial autonomy regulations, development and implementation of the quality assurance process, and granting financial autonomy to six universities. At the Meso level, achievements include helping the financially autonomous universities to open bank accounts to receive grants and philanthropies, establishing university quality assurance committees, development of university strategic plans, and receiving direct support from donors through development projects and university partnerships. At the Micro level, capacity development programs were provided to key faculty and staff in the areas of quality assurance, finance and procurement, project management, internal audit, proposal development, IT, and other areas which facilitate the implementation of the autonomy regulations in their respective universities.

However, these accomplishments are just the first steps in granting greater autonomy to universities. Sustaining and expanding these efforts require more time and resources as well as dealing with the anticipated and unanticipated challenges and resistance.

To better plan the sustainability of current efforts and identifying next steps for increased institutional autonomy to Afghan public universities, we will conduct an assessment of the four Kabul-based universities to identify the current level of autonomy and plan gradual transformation into a desired level of institutional autonomy that is appropriate/logical taking into account the Afghan context, legal frameworks, and the country’s economy and resources for higher education. The assessment will be done based on an analysis framework that is designed to assess all three dimensions of institutional autonomy (academic, administrative, and financial) as well as their elements, sub-elements, measurement indicators, and pre-requisites. The findings of the assessment will be used to develop recommendations for sustaining current activities, defining an appropriate level of autonomy for Afghan public higher education institutions and planning next steps for achieving that level of autonomy gradually

Authors

• Joseph B Berger, University of Massachusetts Boston

• Mujtaba Hedayet, Ph.D. Student