National Quality Assurance and Accreditation Committee & Quality Assurance and Accreditation Project Engineering National Academic Reference Standards April,2007 Mostafa Mohsen Radwan Vice Dean, Faculty of Engineering, Fayoum University Director, Fayoum University Quality Assurance and Strategic Planning Center Member of the Quality Assurance and Accreditation Committee

Education System secondary education “bachelor” “master” professional orientation “master”, research oriented professional doctorates Ph.D. Life-long learning Labour market Initial H.E. Local and Regional Inter- national

Education System H.E. Providers Q.A. Agency (or None !) Government Customers: Students Customers: Employers, Professions

The Globalisation Challenge: The WTO Agenda GATS: General Agreement on Trades and Services Is education a service? Yes, but… ◦ Education has a public good character at least up to secondary education ◦ Private benefits outweigh public benefits for postgraduate ‘job training‘ Is higher education the borderline? ◦ Europe: higher education is a public good  thinking of undergraduate higher education (‘initial’ higher education) ◦ USA: post-initial higher education is a service

The Globalisation Challenge: Who are the Actors? WTO is inter-governmental For a governmental task: regulate markets Actors on the higher education market are ◦ higher education institutions ◦ virtual/online universities ◦ corporate universities ◦ and their hybrids Actors decide autonomously to be ‘global players’ or not

Three common terms “internationalization of education” as the most comprehensive “cross border education” as a subset of “internationalization of education”, and “trade in education services” as an instance of cross border education. Knight (2004)

“Brains Business” Economist Magazine special issue on higher education ◦ “Mass higher education is forcing universities to become more diverse, more global and much more competitive. ◦ A more market-oriented system of higher education can do much better than state-dominated model.” Challenge ◦ How to balance increased access with quality and equity ◦ How to take the advantages of market mechanisms while avoiding the pitfalls

The Bologna Process – Europe facing the challenge Bologna 1999 – Prague 2001 – Berlin 2003 – Bergen 2005 – London 2007 Important themes: the transparency, compatibility, comparability, and flexibility of European higher education Increasing focus on quality assurance Central stakeholders: universities, students, teachers, employers, and society.

International QA system ??? Strengthening of existing national quality assurance agencies (a) to stimulate international cooperation and (b) to accommodate challenges generated by transnational education and trade in education services; Cooperation and networking in cross- border projects on quality assessments and mutual recognition agreements; Implementation of a framework and standard of meta-accreditation of quality assurance agencies on an international and global level; and Development of international QA schemes

WHY SHOULD STUDENTS PARTCIPATE IN QUALITY? Are students customers in higher education? ◦ If yes, what rights do they have in the institution? Are students stakeholders in higher education? ◦ Do they participate in decision-making ◦ Do they get support in order to participate effectively

Common Part

*Practical *General& transferable *Intellectual *Knowledge & understanding

SOME STATEMENTS QA is not a science, but common sense Instruments are important, but the right attitude is much more important There is still a lot to be done QA is the responsibility of everybody QA should be part of the overall policy and management

THANK YOU 30