what is paqaa?
About PAQAA
PAQAA is an agency that will be a major articulating body for the higher education sector in the African continent. It has yet to be formally established, but extensive work has been done to pave the path for this establishment. This website provides background on the PAQAA, political history, and summarizes the major consultations that have been held on it, and the next steps in taking it forward.
The purpose of this website is to create a collective memory across stakeholder organizations, so that the PAQAA can finally advance over the course of the next years, with continued support from the HAQAA initiative, financed by the EU.
the
History of PAQAA
The PAQAA has been a concept that has been both reinforced and matured since 2015, expressly tied to African Union policy commitments and strategies:
In Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want (page 14), a call is made to “Build and expand an African knowledge society through transformation and investments in universities, science, technology, research and innovation; and through the harmonization of education standards and mutual recognition of academic and professional qualifications” and to “establish an African Accreditation Agency to develop and monitor educational quality standards, with a view to expanding student and academic mobility across the continent” .
Subsequently, the African Union’s ‘First Ten-Year Implementation Plan of Agenda 2063 (2014–2023) commits to an “Integrated Africa”, where and “African Education Accreditation Agency and a common educational system are in place and the African Youth will have the choice to study at any university and work anywhere on the continent.”
In the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 2016–2025), the general purposes of harmonization are reiterated, notably though guiding principle 4 and strategic objective 4: “Harmonized education and training systems are essential for the realization of intra-African mobility and academic integration through regional cooperation.”
The PAQAA also has a legal precedent:
Dating back to 2011, the FIRST EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF THE FOURTH CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS OF EDUCATION OF THE AFRICAN UNION (COMEDAF IV +) on “Preparations for launching the Pan-African University” includes a recommendation for the establishment of an African Accreditation Agency.
This was formally followed up upon at the January 2012 AU Summit “Decision on the establishment of the Pan African University” (Decision EX.CL/Dec.691) which also requests that “the Commission in collaboration with RECs, the Association of African Universities and other relevant stakeholders to develop an African Accreditation Agency”. Decision EX.CL/Dec.676(XX)
An AU Executive Decision in 2016 (EX.CL/Dec.676(XX)) validated the PAQAF, which incorporates the PAQAA as one of its pillars. The Decision was proceeded by a feasibility study, funded by the European Commission, which explored the different possible components of the PAQAF, including a Continental Agency and the potential form and functions it could take. The feasibility study fed a Concept Note for PAQAF which was circulated to stakeholders who then attended an AU validation workshop in Accra in July 2015.
In the THIRD ORDINARY SESSION OF THE SPECIALIZED TECHNICAL COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (STC-EST) of the African Union (13 December, 2019), Ministers called on Member States to implement the different tools and action lines of the PAQAF and recalled the Executive Council decision regarding the establishment of an African Accreditation Agency. They requested the Commission to convene a Technical Working Group that develops a Statute specifying the legal framework and the organizational set-up of the Agency;”
In an effort to take PAQAA forward, the AUC held two important stakeholder workshops, which have helped to flesh out the agency’s possible functions:
The, Accra, 29-30 July 2015, hosted by AAU (reference above)
The Addis Ababa Communiqué: A Technical Consultative Stakeholders’ Workshop, 13-14 December 2018 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, hosted by the AUC.
This was the precedent to HAQAA2, which has helped to advance further in PAQAA establishment, by constituting a Technical Working Group (TWG), to proceeded to assess the feasibility of certain functions and propose a development approach in phases.
Our mission
To be the continental African agency to coordinate, promote, and facilitate the implementation of the Pan-African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Framework (PAQAF) in higher education, as implicated in the PAQAF action lines.
Our Objectives
- To increase the transparency of quality assurance and accreditation in Africa by promoting the African Standards and Guidelines for quality assurance in higher education (ASG-QA) and its application in external and internal quality assurance
- To reinforce cooperation between national quality assurance and accreditation agencies, as well as regional quality assurance networks
- To reinforce cooperation between relevant qualifications authorities and institutions related to recognition of higher education across borders.
- To promote alignment between qualifications frameworks (national, regional) in Africa and globally as it pertains to the higher education sector in particular.
- To facilitate higher education mobility between African Union Member States, through the promotion and application of common frameworks and tools for recognition of degrees and credits.
- To support capacity development for countries, agencies and institutions with regards the PAQAF action lines and their implementation
- To promote the African continental instruments and frameworks globally and serve as an interface with other continents and agencies with similar missions.
Our Importance
- The different tools and instruments of the PAQAF, which facilitate regional and continental integration in the higher education sector across Africa, need to be articulated and systematically promoting to the higher education community and government.
- There are presently many networks and associations committed to quality assurance, accreditation and regional harmonization across Africa. Each operates within its own space and jurisdiction, with its own constituencies, and is afforded little opportunity and/or limited resources to collaborate on the continental level, in pursuit of continental African objectives, despite good will.
- Externally funded initiatives like HAQAA2 offer such platforms for collaboration, however, are time- bound and dependent on external financing by international partners like the EU.
- PAQAA can serve as an overarching body which can oversee quality assurance in higher education and qualifications in Africa and ensure coherencies and common standards across the continent.
- It will be a centralized, stakeholder-led body that facilitates recognition of qualifications across borders, student and faculty mobility and exchange, and the continuous development of quality assurance systems.
- This is directly relevant the African Free Trade Agreement(ACfTA) and the realization of ‘The Africa We Want’ (Agenda 2063).
PAQAF
The Pan-African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Framework
The Pan-African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Framework (PAQAF) has been the African Union’s flagship framework for harmonization in the higher education sector and a cornerstone of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA) and, subsequently, Agenda 2063 – The Africa We Want. Endorsed by an AU Executive Council Decision, PAQAF intends to articulate a number of tools and action lines which are deemed critical to achieving competitive, relevant, high quality higher education which stimulates academic and professional mobility across the African continent.
However, the PAQAF, upon its conception, was rather a road map than an operational tool kit of pre-existing instruments:
- The Addis Ababa Convention for Recognition of Studies , one of its instruments, had and still remains to be ratified by the majority of African states;
- The African Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ASG-QA) were subsequently drafted in the context of HAQAA1 (2015-2018), as was a review methodology for quality assurance agencies (QAA) in Africa;
- The TUNING Africa initiative tabled a proposal for an African Credit Transfer System (ACTS), which is pending political endorsement;
- An initiative of the European Training Foundation (ETF), GIZ (Germany)and the African Union Commission (AUC)to build and implement the African Continental Qualifications Framework (ACQF) is currently underway, in its second phase.
All of these initiatives have contributed to making the PAQAF a reality, however, it is still a work in progress.
As an integral part of PAQAF, the AU has committed to the establishment of a Pan-African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency (PAQAA), which should serve as a guardian body for the PAQAF actions lines and tools.
