A Study On Quality Assurance And Accreditation Project (QAAP) For Higher Education In Egypt

Quality is an eternal issue in developing higher education. To sustainable enhance and guarantee the quality of higher education has become the core theme of reform and management of higher education throughout the world. To study the Quality Assurance and Accreditation Project of Higher Education in Egypt (QAAP) not only can expand the field of the study of higher education quality assurance, but also make deep understanding of concept and rationale of the quality assurance and accreditation of higher education, the quality assurance procedures and methods. What’s more, according to the experience learned in the implementation of QAAP, we can learn the experience and lessons to put forward our higher education reform and development.Take Total Quality Management (TQM) and Evaluation Theory of Higher Education as the theoretical basis and Edmund King’s Theory Framework of Comparative Study as the principal thinking axis, this study makes a comprehensive analysis of context and environment of QAAP, the content system, the achievements and effects, the features and values from the aspects of context, concept, institution, operation, decision and implementation.Specifically to say, lays the context of QAAP as the logic basis for the thesis, applying the method of factor analysis deeply dissect the international and national factors of QAAP. Internationalization of higher education and the request of involving in the global competition of Egypt are the external impetus. And the political support, the request of the labor market are the internal impetus of the implementation of QAAP, The former quality reform plans of the higher education is the direct force of QAAP. As the main body of this thesis, applying the method of literature research gather all the materials of the text of QAAP, the reports of the implementation of QAAP and materials of the features evaluation to analyze the content of this thesis. According to all the gathered materials, the content system of QAAP is the goals and aims, the accreditation indicators, the accreditation organization and the accreditation operational procedures. To inspect the implementation of QAAP, although it has several advantages of cultivation of the quality assurance culture, the medium feature of QAAPA and the external support resources, QAAP gets its confirmation both nationally and internationally, also QAAP disseminates the "Egyptian Model" of quality assurance and enhance the cooperation and communication between Egypt and other countries all around the world. What’s more, there exits some features such as the sustainable development in the content, the gradation feature in structure and multiple features in value orientation. All the above features make the QAAP implement successfully. Then, applying the method of comparative research place the differences between Egypt and China, go back to the purpose of borrowing from other countries of comparative study. According to the thought of learning from others despite different cultures, find out the reference from the Egyptian experience and lesson to offer some suggestions, such as the concept of quality assurance, the construction of evaluation indicators, the participation of medium organization and the cultivation of quality assurance culture to improve our quality of higher education.