A milestone week for the future of quality assurance in Africa
Last week, the African Union Commission hosted a milestone week for quality assurance in higher education at its headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, bringing together representatives of African Union Member States, national quality assurance agencies, regional organisations, higher education institutions and international partners to advance key continental harmonisation initiatives.
Convened by the African Union Commission, the first in-person meeting of the Interim Council of the Pan-African Quality Assurance Alliance (PAQAA) marked the heart of the week. The Interim Council brings together representatives designated by 23 African Union Member States. It is further supported by the participation of three regional organisations (IUCEA, CAMES and SARUA) and the Association of African Universities (AAU) as the continental association of higher education institutions. The meeting also welcomed observers from 8 additional African Union Member States.
During the meeting, Interim Council members reviewed the draft statutes of the future Alliance and provided strategic guidance for their further development. They also agreed to move forward with the establishment of PAQAA as an intergovernmental organisation endorsed by the African Union, marking an important milestone towards the creation of a permanent continental quality assurance for higher education mechanism.
The deliberations were informed by several months of preparatory work led by the PAQAA Technical Advisors, who conducted regional consultations with Interim Council members across the continent and supported the drafting of the statutes in close coordination with the Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (ESTI) Department of the African Union Commission.
According to the current draft statutes, PAQAA is envisaged as the continental body responsible for ensuring the long-term implementation of the African Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ASG-QA). Its proposed functions include, among others, coordinating African external reviews of national quality assurance agencies against the ASG-QA, maintaining a continental register of compliant agencies, serving as the custodian of the ASG-QA and coordinating their periodic review and revision.
A week of synergetic events
The PAQAA Interim Council meeting took place alongside several synergetic events, including the Annual Conference and General Assembly of the African Quality Assurance Network (AfriQAN), the meetings of the HAQAA3 Steering Committee and Advisory Board, and the Advisory Board meeting of the Erasmus+ CBHE project Joint QA. Holding these meetings back-to-back created opportunities to connect policy dialogue, technical implementation and regional cooperation within a single continental agenda. Representatives of the ESTI Department of the African Union Commission participated throughout the week, together with representatives of the European Union Delegation to the African Union, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) and Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC), reflecting the strategic partnership underpinning the HAQAA Initiative.
A progress built over the years
The events in Addis Ababa also highlighted the steady progress made over the past years in building an African quality assurance ecosystem. Through HAQAA3, African stakeholders have jointly developed common continental reference tools, strengthened national quality assurance systems, implemented African-led external reviews through a continental pool of African experts, and laid the foundations for PAQAA as a sustainable mechanism under African leadership.
The convergence of these processes in Addis Ababa illustrates how policy development, capacity building and institutional strengthening are progressively coming together to support a coherent continental quality assurance architecture.
