Developing Structures for Quality Assurance and Accreditation

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

Proposal

Rapidly increasing demand for higher education forced the government of Afghanistan to reform the existing system, which gave birth to a vibrant private sector and expansion of public institutions. The expansion occurred so rapidly that existing structure at the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) could no longer correspond to expectations of higher education institutions (HEIs). Consequently, quality assurance and accreditation (QAA) agency emerged to oversee quality of academic programs. In this paper, I will discuss sustainability of QAA in Afghanistan in light of Holland’s (2007) analytical framework: national (macro), institution (meso), and college and/or department (micro).

Establishment of QAA was a joint effort between MoHE and donor assistance, USAID’s Higher Education Project (HEP). In 2009, MoHE institutionalized QAA as a national policy, followed by establishment Quality Enhancement and Accreditation Department (QEAD) department in 2011, and a mandatory accreditation policy by MoHE in 2012, requiring all HEIs to undergo accreditation (Babury & Hayward, 2014; Hayward, 2015). Given the newness of the policy, HEP, now referred to as University Support and Workforce Development Program (USWDP) provided constant support to publicize QAA and trained various stakeholders about process and products (Babury & Hayward, 2013; Ibrahimi, 2014). Although immediate outcomes towards QAA are extraordinary, sustainability of this initiative remains a debatable issue.

MoHE’s success in developing a system to oversee quality at the national level seems promising, as HEIs now use the accreditation framework as a roadmap (Hayward, 2015). Nevertheless, an analysis of the context of higher education shows that the current progress would not have been possible without technical and financial support of USWDP and other development projects. The extent to which MoHE can sustain the status quo and build on QAA process in absence of external support, remains a critical concern. The sustainability of QAA is contingent on structural reform and continuous support: letting QAA function as an independent administration with the authority to generate income to pay for its expenses. To successfully reach this goal, there is a need for development projects to work with the independent administration to achieve its goals. Otherwise, poor capacity of staff and QAA board will contribute to unexpected consequences such as corruption and unethical decisions.

Similarly, the QAA process has produced some tangible outcomes at institutional and college level, as almost all HEIs have an institutional level QAA committee and sub-committees (Hayward, 2015). The HEIs are expected to continuously administer QAA policy as a systematic way to improve quality. A case study by Taheryar (2017) shows that implementation of QAA has served some educative and administrative purposes as HEIs developed strategic plans, faculty adapted alternative teaching methods and developed market-oriented degrees. However, these achievements were made possible by technical and financial support of development projects. Sustainability of QAA at institution and program level is contingent on two factors: (a) HEIs, faculty in particular, internalize QAA processes as part of institutional culture, and (b) HEIs have sufficient autonomy to generate revenues to pay for operation and development costs. If these issues are not addressed, sustainability of QAA at institutional and program level will remain a rhetoric.

Author

• Sayed Ahmad Javid Mussawy, University of Massachusetts Amherst