Educational - Ozean Publications

European Journal of Educational Studies 2(2), 2010Institutional LevelThe same idea is with enhancing the institutional abilities of the faculty. Every dimension has it own criteria and it ismeasured according to these criteria. In all of these, the institution must have its own mission, vision and aims. “In thecurrent academic year, there is a plan to change curricula into electronic ones in order to facilitate reaching it to studentsvia the university website”, expert M said. Also, in the current academic year a workshop has been conducted for specifyingthe form of the exam paper in terms of content and outline. “The laboratories and libraries in the faculty reached a goodlevel of advancement…..the faculty has a strategic plan which conforms to the national criteria for education”, expert Madded. The professional development for academic staff is done through specialised programmes in the faculty. Theprofessional development includes teaching and learning, research, management, community service and effective teachingvia programmes in professional development. The Ministry of Higher Education started connecting the increase of salarieswith the quality of performance for enhancing the learning process in the faculty. Each academic staff has to be found fourdays per week and offering help and assistance for students in terms of academic preparation and advice.The faculty has a strategic plan which conforms to the national criteria for education. “We are now proceeding withinstitutional accreditation and programme accreditation”, expert S said. It has a plan for enhancing it. The faculty started toenhance teaching rooms into electronic rooms for assisting academic staff to deal with the mass number of students.However, “the faculty may ask for guidance from other institutions particularly in areas of lack”, expert A said.For the faculty accreditation, QAU is meant by performing all procedures and requirements related to preparing the facultyfor accreditation from the NAQAAE. “All governmental universities started establishing QAC inside universities andestablishing QAUs inside faculties…..quality in education is represented in institutional capacity and educationaleffectiveness”, expert I said. Through self study, and academic criteria and field visits, the unit assists the faculty in obtainingaccreditation. When the faculty is ready for accreditation, the faculty addresses the university and the university consult theQAC which states and examines the faculty’s application. The university then addresses the Ministry of Higher Educationand the ministry addresses the NAQAAE which began to operate its own procedures and requirements of accreditation.National LevelQuality in Egypt has been founded since 1904 as a practice and not as a concept. It became existed in the values of educationin the 1980s. After the Second World War and Egypt has obtained partial independence, there were aims to establish anational university in Egypt. During this time, princess Farida donated by her jewelleries and this assisted establishing thisuniversity which became later known as Cairo University. After this time and due to a financial crisis the university becamenot able to finance itself. It applied then to the government in order to become a governmental university. The government ofthis time formed a committee for evaluating the university (as a form of accreditation in practice and not in concept) whichbecame the first governmental university in Egypt. Such current huge numbers of students existed now were not existedbefore the 1980s. QAAHE as a practice was existed in the Egyptian higher education before establishing the NAQAAE, butdue to the increase in admissions and the requirements of enhancement, it requires establishing this authority. “Beforeestablishing the National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Education, the operations of teachingacademic programmes were performed according to comparison with other similar institutions in different countries”, expertA said.QAAHE started in Egypt in 2000 as one of the main projects of HEEP. This project depended on experts in QAAHE fromQuality Assurance Agency (QAA) in the UK. This project started operating its processes across institutional level, universitylevel, and the national level. “They began establishing academic references and strategic plan across the governmentaluniversities”, expert I said. All governmental universities started establishing QACs inside universities and establishingQAUs inside faculties. The main role of these centres and units is to enhance preparing and assisting higher educationinstitutions for obtaining accreditation from the NAQAAE which was established in 2006. “On the ministerial scale, thereare periodical meetings for QACs…..these are legitimate structures for assuring the quality of higher education in Egypt”,expert I said. They began establishing its own law for accrediting higher education, pre-higher education and Al-AzharEducation. “This committee was responsible for putting the parameter for quality assurance and accreditation in highereducation, and to work to establish a new law to initiate a national agency in Egypt”, expert S said. Every educational sectorhas its own policies, orientations and programmes. This is the broad landscape of QAAHE in Egypt. The NAQAAE has itsown vision, mission, aims and tasks for assuring and accrediting the quality of higher education.The main focus of QAAHE in Egypt is on teaching and learning. Because the nature of QAAHE in Egypt is based onstudents the matter which means that it is focused on teaching and learning. There are a lot of weights. The biggest one isdirected to teaching and learning and not to research. However, there is still a weight for research. For example, how manyresearch papers are produced by staff and where were they published? Is there a strategic plan for research or no? What kindof research is done? Is there enough funding? Research should be important as teaching and learning because it is responsibleabout producing new knowledge. Because the concentration of accreditation is on graduates, the focus is on teaching and55