Last Updated on December 16, 2014 by admin

The President, Association of African Universities (AAU) and Vice-Chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Professor Olusola Oyewole, has joined other educational administrators to support quality assurance practice in tertiary institutions across Africa. Brainstorming on the progress in quality assurance in African higher education at the 6th International Conference on Quality Assurance in Higher Education, Professor Oyewole and other stakeholders in the education sector noted that the quality of African higher education remained under severe pressure. The conference stressed the need for quality assurance agencies in Africa to become more acceptable as the number of national quality assurance agencies rose from mere six in 2006 to 23 today, while new initiatives were also being launched to promote further developments. The conference, which was co-hosted by the African branch of the Global University Network for Innovation; GUNi-Africa and the African Quality Assurance Network; AfriQAN and co-funded by the European Union, drew 150 participants to Bujumbura, discussed issues that bordered on internationalisation, improving the quality of African degrees and the need to embrace quality assurance as part and parcel of modern higher education.

Stakeholders agreed that an official conference statement should be published within the next few weeks, urging African countries and institutions without quality assurance agencies to establish one as a matter of priority. It will also recommend that a Pan-African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Framework be instituted. The AAU President, Professor Oyewole, who was delighted at the increase in awareness quality assurance in higher institutions in Africa since the Tuning meeting held in Libreville, Gabon, which preceded the 2013 General Assembly of the Association of African Universities, where many voiced their doubts that small African countries needed national quality assurance agencies, had requested that political support from the countries should now be secured in the interest of African development.

According to him, “we may not need all countries at the same time. We can start with those that are ready. Then we need the Arusha Convention to be ratified so as to increase awareness of the need for mobility of staff and students, and the need for comparability of diplomas and certificates. When that is in place, I think the national quality assurance agencies will pick up the need to work together”, the AAU President said. Therefore, it is expected that from next year, the European Union’s new Pan-African Programme will be used to expand and extend the coverage of its Tuning Africa project to more broadly support quality assurance and accreditation in Africa and the development of a harmonised quality assurance and accreditation system that is aimed at nurturing institutional cultures of quality by supporting the implementation of the Pan-African Quality Assurance Framework.