Expanding quality assurance in Ethiopian higher education

Abstract

Ethiopian higher education has a short history of quality assurance practice. Pressed with acute concerns on educational quality caused by massive expansion over the past decade, the Ministry of Education has adopted an external and internal system of managing and supervising the relevance and quality of higher education. In spite of this, the existing practice of quality assurance lacks comprehensiveness. It suffers from a disproportionate focus on the quality of core university missions, a lack of a robust conceptual framework, and disconnected approaches to managing quality. The paper therefore concludes that the current practice of quality management needs to be revised and updated in order to ensure success with regard to the assurance and enhancement of quality. In this respect, there is a need to develop a conceptually, legislatively and structurally comprehensive approach towards understanding and dealing with higher education quality. Quality assurance and quality enhancement activities also need to be tuned and complementary. There is also a need to commit more emphasis on enhancing quality.