Fourth Issue: April 2013

Quality Regimes in Africa: The Reality and the Aspirations

This fourth issue of the Chronicle of African Higher Education, contributed by Prof. Juma Shabani, director of the UNESCO Bamako Cluster Office in Mali, focuses on the growth, challenges and aspirations of quality regimes in Africa. In this piece Professor Shabani raises a number of interesting issues and questions:
(i) In light of the Bologna Process on mutual recognition of qualifications in Europe, what role should the Arusha Convention play in the process of establishing the African Higher Education and Research Space?
(ii) How should the Harmonisation Strategy build on the Tuning Africa project, the African Quality Rating Mechanisms and the African regional accreditation and quality assurance frameworks in order to develop an African regional qualifications framework and a credit transfer and accumulation system?
(iii) How should the Harmonisation Strategy involve higher education and quality assurance stakeholders to enhance implementation of the Arusha Convention?
(iv) What lessons can be learned for the LMD reform from the experience of Anglophone countries to establish viable mechanisms of quality assurance at national and sub-regional levels?
These are all interesting and timely questions that need to be addressed in the effort to build a sound higher education system on the continent. Click here to read more.

The Chronicle of African Higher Education is an initiative of the International Network for Higher Education in Africa, which is being hosted at the Higher Education Training and Development at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. Articles of the Chronicle are contributed by invitation and are edited by Professor Damtew Teferra.

Click here for earlier articles.


Professor Damtew Teferra
Editor, Chronicle of African Higher Education
Leader, Higher Education Training and Development
Howard College
University of Kwazulu-Natal
Durban, South Africa