Quality Assurance in Higher Education: The Jordanian Experience

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Quality Assurance in Higher Education The
Jordanian Experience
By Sahar N. Al-Yousef 1st International
Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher
Education 11 - 13 December, 2006 Lahore,
Pakistan
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• About HE in Jordan.
• Accreditation Methodologies.
• Informal Quality Assurance Activities.
• Quality Assurance in HE The Future.

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0. About HE in Jordan

• Jordan is well known, regionally and
  internationally, for its highly reputed higher
  education system. This reputation is the result
  of 50 years of hard work and investment in this
  sector in addition to the determination of the
  Jordanian leadership and decision makers to
  develop the higher education sector in comparison
  with the international models enabling it to
  compete regionally and internationally.

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0.1 Major Challenges facing HE in Jordan

• The drastic increase in the demand on higher
  education.
• Frequency and overlap of majors in state
  private universities under different names yet
  one content.
• Incompatibility between the graduates skills and
  jobs requirements.
• Limited governmental financial support of HEIs.

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• Poor allocated budgets for the purposes of
  developing organizational strategic plans,
  scientific researches, grants, infrastructure
  ...etc.
• Competition Penetration of foreign universities
  and untraditional educational systems (open
  learning, e-learning, distance learning etc.) in
  the Arabic market.

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0.2 Legislations

• Higher Education Scientific Research Law
  (Number (4) Year 2005),
• State Universities Law (Number (42) Year 2001),
• Private Universities Law (Number (43) Year 2001).

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i. The Higher Education Council (HEC)

• The Minister of HE ? president.
• The Minister of Education ? vice president.
• All state universities' presidents.
• Four private universities presidents in rotation.
• Secretary General of the MoHESR.
• Director General of the Accreditation Council.
• Seven experts in the field of higher education,
  four of which must come from the private sector.

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The main responsibilities of the HEC are

• Drawing the HE Policies in Jordan.
• Licensure of HEIs and Academic Programs.
• Support the independency of HEIs.
• Defining the admission policy in all HEIs.
• Nominating state universities presidents, vice
  presidents and deans to the Ministers Board.
• Appointing presidents of private universities.
• Allocating financial resources to support state
  universities.
• Acknowledging the academic agreements between
  Jordanian HEIs and international academic
  organizations.

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ii. The Accreditation Council of Higher
Education Institutions (AC)

• The Minister of HE ? the president.
• Director General of the AC ? the vice president.
• Secretary General of the MoHE.
• Nine academics, six of which are full or
  associate professors, who are experts in the
  field of higher education.

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The main responsibilities of the AC are

• Issue, amend and update accreditation standards.
• Institutional and Specialized Accreditation of
  the private HEIs and its academic programs.
• Monitoring the performance of HEIs and taking
  necessary action when needed.
• Assuring the compatibility of the objectives of
  academic programs with students acquired skills.
• Strengthening the transparency and credibility of
  certificates.
• Assuring that the educational process elements
  conform to the market needs and relevant economic
  development plans.
• Continually enhancing higher education quality.
• Enhancing HEIs abilities to encounter
  international educational challenges.

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The stages to start an institution/ Academic
Program

• Licensing Stage
• It is the responsibility of the HEC.
• Requirements mainly related to the
  infrastructure, faculty members and financial
  aspects.
• Result A license to provide higher education
  services in Jordan.
• Condition Fulfilling the accreditation
  requirement within one year.

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• Accreditation Stage
• It is the responsibility of the Accreditation
  Council.
• It is a continuous auditing and assessment
  process of the HEI and its academic programs
  aiming at assuring the fulfillment of the minimum
  quality elements of the educational process based
  on the Accreditation Standards issued by the
  Accreditation Council.
• Currently it is limited to private HEIs.

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1.1 Types of Accreditation

• 1.1.1 Institutional Accreditation
• It is an assessment process resulting in defining
  the institution students capacity and aiming at
  assuring the fulfillment of the minimum quality
  elements of the educational process at the level
  of the institution.
• The HEI will be assessed based on the
  Institutional Accreditation Standards that were
  set by the Accreditation Council.
• The institutions undergoes the accreditation
  process once every three years.
• There are standards for accrediting private
  universities, community colleges, post graduate
  universities and non-conventional universities.

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• Institutional Accreditation Standards concentrate
  on the
• following points
• Administrative and Academic Structure Defining
  different councils structures as well as academic
  administrative positions.
• Faculty members Student to Staff Ratio (SSR)
  (201-Science) or (301-Humanities), percentage
  of instructors holding only M.Sc. Degree (20),
  percentage of part-timers (10), weekly teaching
  load for faculty members, students to lab
  supervisor/technician ratio, working load of each
  lab supervisor/technician.

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• Campus Area min campus area campus area per
  student (30m2).
• Classrooms min classroom area (60m2), classroom
  area per student (1.5m²) , max no. of students in
  a classroom (40 - 60).
• Theaters and seminar rooms at least two seminar
  rooms and one theatre.

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• Laboratories and Workshops at least one general
  computer lab (60m² - 20 computers one printer
  per 100 students), linguistics labs, min lab or
  workshop area (60m²), max no. of students in one
  lab session (20).
• Library min Library area per student (0.8m²),
  min no. of different book titles per student
  (10), periodicals, computers, librarians.

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• Admission and Registration Unit min area per
  student (1m²), staff, forms.
• Public and Private Utilities clinics, athletic
  fields, restaurants, exhibition halls, praying
  rooms, toilets, cold fountains, green areas,
  parking facilities, offices.
• Devices and Educational Aids personal computers
  for faculty members students, printers, data
  show devices, VCR TV sets, photocopiers.

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• The institution students capacity
• It is calculated based on the results of the
  major factors
• being campus area, classrooms area, faculty,
  library,
• admission and registration unit.
• It equals the average capacity of the three least
  factors or
• the capacity based on the faculty members
  whichever less.

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• 1.1.2 Specialized Accreditation
• It is an assessment process resulting in defining
  the academic program students capacity and aiming
  at assuring the fulfillment of the minimum
  quality elements of the educational process at
  the level of the department.
• The Academic Program will be assessed based on
  the Specialized Accreditation Standards that were
  set by the Accreditation Council for every
  academic program.
• The academic programs will undergo the
  accreditation process once every two years.

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• Specialized Accreditation Standards concentrate
  on the
• following points
• Curriculum minimum number of credit hours to get
  a Bachelor degree is 132, min percentage of core
  courses (60), knowledge areas.
• The program must have declared vision, mission,
  objectives, intended learning outcomes and
  students assessment methods.

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• Faculty members at least one faculty member for
  every knowledge area specified by the standards,
  min no. of faculty members (Ph.D.) is four one
  of them is at least an associate professor,
  Student to Staff Ratio (301-Humanities) or
  (201-Science), max 20 of faculty members can
  be holding only M.Sc. Degree, max 10 of faculty
  members can be part-timers, weekly teaching load
  for faculty members.

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• Library contents topics, no. of book titles,
  periodicals, lexicons, encyclopedias, recency of
  the library contents.
• Laboratories, workshops, and special facilities
  min lab area (60m2), max no. of students in one
  session (20 students), one supervisor/technician
  per lab, labs to be equipped with the instruments
  defined in the standards.
• Administration staff, administrative facilities,
  educational aids, leaflets, brochures and a
  dedicated website that provide necessary
  information about the department.

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• The program students capacity
• The program students capacity shall be
  calculated based on the actual number of faculty
  members and the relevant students to staff ratio
  taking into consideration the mutual teaching
  load of all concerned faculty members dedicated
  to that program or others.

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Quantitative or Qualitative?

• Although those standards are quantitative
  measures the national experience proved that it
  has a clear positive effect on the quality of the
  educational process.
• Moreover, it forms the base for a quality
  assurance system that will concentrate more on
  qualitative measures.

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1.2 The Accreditation Procedures
Self Evaluation Report (SER)

• Selection of the External Review
• Panel

Informing the institute
Final Verdict
Panel Orientation
Site Visit
Technical Report
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1.3 Increasing the student capacity of the
institution/academic program

• Justifying reasons
• Is there a need in the local and regional labor
  markets for graduates holding degrees from that
  particular academic field?
• What are the results of the graduates' assessment
  and what is the feedback from their current
  employers?
• What was done to accommodate the potential
  increase in the number of students in terms of
  the quantity and quality of faculty members, and
  in terms of expanding and enhancing the
  infrastructure of the institution/department?
• What are the plans to assure the stability of the
  faculty members and the academic programs?

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To assure the quality of the educational process

• The maximum number of students in an institution
  is 8000.
• The maximum students capacity that could be
  granted for any academic program when being
  accredited for the first time is 200 students.
• The institution has the right to ask for an
  increase in the students capacity only after two
  years since the last time that capacity was
  granted or raised.
• The maximum increase in the students capacity of
  the institution/academic program is 50 of the
  current capacity.

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2. Quality Assurance Activities in HE in Jordan

• During the last 5 years there were several
  informal activities of quality assurance of
  higher education initiated and sponsored by
• The Hussein Fund for Excellence (HFE).
• United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
• These initiatives were in the form of subject
  review programs (Law, Nursing, Accountancy, BA,
  Computer Science, and Education)

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• Faculty members were trained on
• quality assurance requirements,
• writing the self evaluation reports,
• the external review procedures.
• Following that, external reviewers from the QAA
  UK assessed these programs and the results were
  published in the form of ranking.

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• The positive effect of these activities on the
  educational process is
• Creating a high level of QA awareness among the
  faculty members at the participating
  universities.
• Creating a well trained local team of external
  subject reviewers.
• Creating a set of documents that could be
  considered as the nucleus of a quality assurance
  system in each university.
• Detecting points of strength and weaknesses in
  the reviewed programs which had a positive impact
  in enhancing the quality of these programs in
  Jordan.
• Establishing a QA Unit responsible for the
  Quality Assurance System in each of the
  participating universities.

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3. The Commission of Accreditation QA of HEIs
in Jordan

• Why?
• The need to move towards qualitative measures of
  the educational process.
• The need to apply the accreditation standards to
  all HEIs (state private).
• The need to have an independent authority that is
  free from any governmental influence.

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• Vision
• An independent commission responsible for the
  continuous improvement and enhancement of the
  higher education in Jordan through the
  accreditation of all higher education
  institutions and the quality assurance of the
  educational process.

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• Mission
• Enhancing the quality of the higher education in
  Jordan and improving its competitive edge
  nationally and internationally through
  establishing accreditation standards and quality
  assurance systems that will be applied by all
  higher education institutions and through
  assuring that these institutions are achieving
  their objectives in accordance with the national
  higher education policies.

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• Objectives
• Executing the policies of accreditation and
  quality assurance of HEIs through appropriate
  methodologies.
• Developing the national higher education and
  benchmarking it with its international
  counterparts using key performance indicators
  that comply with the international best
  practices.
• Supporting the HEIs in enhancing the quality of
  the educational process, building the needed
  quality management systems and capacity building
  of academic staff.

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• Monitoring the performance of the HEIs and their
  fulfillment of the relevant regulations and
  standards.
• Consolidate the transparency concept through
  involving all stakeholders in the decision making
  process.
• Evaluating and ranking of the HEIs and the
  different academic programs on a regular bases
  and publish the results by all possible means.
• Creating quality assurance awareness and
  excellent education culture.
• Cooperating with the international accreditation
  bodies and other related organizations.

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The Commission Structure

• A. The commission board
• The president (full time, Prof.).
• Two vice presidents (full time, Prof.).
• 9 members representing HEIs and the labor market
  (part time, Prof.).

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• B. The Executive Organization
• Licensure Accreditation Directorate.
• Auditing Directorate.
• Quality Assurance Directorate.
• Research Development Directorate.
• Administration Financial Directorate.

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• Accreditation Standards
• Minimum quality elements.
• Quality Assurance System
• Excel The sky is the limit!

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The National Guideline for TQM of HEIs

• This guideline is currently being prepared by a
  group of Jordanian experts. It will be a
  reference for the institutions and the reviewers
  and it will form the base for the quality
  management system (QMS) that the HEIs shall adopt
  and be assessed upon.

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• The guideline shall consist of the following
  modules
• Design of a QMS at HEI.
• Performance Management, Measurement and
  Indicators System for HEI.
• External Auditing System.
• Self Assessment Guidelines.
• Design of an Excellence Model for HEI.

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• Evaluation and Ranking System for HEI.
• Quality Management of Non-Conventional Education.
• Training, Operation, Maintenance and Improvement
  of the QMS.
• Awareness Campaign of the QMS.

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• Thank You