The East African Universities’ Yearbook

Training Course for East African Quality Assurance Coordinators, Group B, Part III: During June 21st to 26th 2009, a regional workshop, Part III of the training course for the second cohort quality assurance coordinators was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The workshop brought together about 70 participants comprising Quality Assurance Coordinators and the Chairs of Departments/Self Assessment Teams. The aim of the workshop was to discuss experiences from the pilot self-assessment process, train the coordinators as well as chairpersons of the self-assessment teams on issues emanating from the self-assessment process, and prepare the university for external program evaluation. Other issues covered during the workshop focused on discussion and sharing of experiences on Expected Learning Outcomes and involvement of stakeholders in curriculum design.

Quality Assurance Standing Committee

Following the enactment of the IUCEA Act 2008, the QA Standing Committee has noted that the IUCEA has been mandated among others to "advise Partners States on matters related to higher education, in particular establishment of Quality Assurance through a number of activities (Article 6.(c) (i) – (v). Pursuant to this new development, the Standing Committee held a meeting on September 14th 2009 in Kampala during which it was agreed to evaluate the IUCEA regional quality assurance initiative since its inception in early 2006, and to develop a strategic plan that will address the quality assurance challenges as stipulated in the IUCEA Act 2008. The Committee proposed the formation of a regional Technical Team of 5 people with representation from the five EAC Partner States and the IUCEA Quality Assurance Officer as the Secretary. The Committee will be expected to produce an analysis report from the SWOT analysis/stock taking, and draft short- and long-term plans for the next 5 years, clearly stipulating the strategic objectives and milestones to be achieved in view of harmonization of higher education in the region. Following the completion of the pilot activities of the 1st Cohort which included Programme Self Assessment and Peer Review, the Committee also deliberated on the need to conduct an analysis on the whole process which shall include the following: In September 2009 the Secretariat printed the first edition of the East African Universities’ Year Book and distributed it to stakeholders. The Secretariat has been receiving updates that will be used to produce the second edition. The purpose of producing the yearbook is to create a database of member universities of IUCEA that can be shared by the universities, identify expertise and capacities in the universities, help students to choose universities for placement and provide information for student and staff exchanges. The year book will be updated every year.

Training of Peers for Pilot Programme Evaluation

About 30 East African peers were trained in Kampala in November 16 – 18 2009. This was followed by the 1st round pilot peer review of 10 programmes to various universities in November 19 – 25 2009: 7 in Uganda, 2 in Tanzania and 1 in Kenya, with the participation of 4 German experts. The second round of peers visit for the remaining 12 programmes took place in February 1 – 9 2010. The programmes being piloted for the second cohort include medicine, business studies, computer science/informatics, and education with English language. A forum involving heads of partner institutions in the EALP and stakeholders in HIV and AIDS and related matters was held on January 15, 2010 in Kisumu, Kenya. The agenda included receipt of a SIDA commissioned mid-term M&E of the EALP project, now that it has been there for about 3 years, and way forward on the pending activities of the EALP. The report’s recommendations were adopted, including modification of the project’s administrative and governance system. The partners will soon be facilitated to effectively adapt the deliberations. A no-cost extension was granted following appreciation of the real challenges faced by the baseline survey teams in preparing and implementing the studies.The IUCEA is participating in an initiative coordinated by the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) comprising 23 universities in the East Central and Southern (ECSA). During February 8 – 9 2010, RUFORUM organized a regional workshop in Entebbe Uganda to develop a Regional Quality Assurance Framework for agricultural postgraduate programmes at Master and Ph.D. The IUCEA played a leading role in contributing and sharing the existing quality assurance experience in developing the framework. The draft framework that was developed is due for submission to various RUFORUM stakeholders and finally the Vice Chancellors Annual General Meeting scheduled in November 2010.The fourth workshop of the joint project between, IUCEA, Alicante University of Spain and the AfriQ’Units universities (i.e. Moi, Makerere and Mzumbe) through the European Commission EDULINK initiative was held in Zanzibar Tanzania during January 21 – 22 2010. The main objective of the workshop was on comprehending the overall goal of the project on building "Sustainable Quality Culture in East African Institutions through Centralized Units". The main focus was on institutional self-assessment and external evaluation.

AfriQ’ Units EDULINK Quality Assurance Workshop Part IV

(i) Sustainable creation and/or consolidation of the Quality Assurance Units within partners institutions

(ii) Strengthening the cooperation between East African accreditation agencies and the Afriq’Units consortium.

(iii) Sharing experience and interchanging of peers and experts among East African region.

(iv) Creating new experts in the field of unit and program evaluation through the Afriq’Units assessment process.

(v) Creating benchmarking activities to share lessons learned from the self- and external institutional assessment exercises.