The Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs announced by President Juncker in the 2018 State of the European Union underlines the importance of higher education to build skills for the future of the continent and create jobs. This is to be achieved by improving the contents and relevance of education, enhancing innovation, facilitating the mobility of students and staff and supporting harmonization and recognition.
The European Union and African Union Commissions are pleased to announce the publication of the African Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ASG-QA), under the ‘Harmonisation of African Higher Education Quality Assurance and Accreditation (HAQAA)‘ Initiative, implemented by a consortium consisting of the University of Barcelona (Coordinator), the Association of African Universities (AAU), the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), the European University Association (EUA) and the DAAD.
The ASG-QA provide an overarching framework for quality assurance in higher education. Developed by a Technical Working Group of African experts, with the support of European partners, they are the result of extensive consultations of higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies, as well as ministries in Africa, regional bodies and student representatives. They are premised on existing standards and guidelines in different African countries and regions and also benchmarked globally. This will promote and facilitate mutual trust between higher education agencies, regulatory bodies and institutions, transparency and accountability, and facilitate the recognition and mobility of students and human resources within and across national borders of the continent and with Europe.
The ASG-QA will be submitted to the African Union in 2019 for a more formal political endorsement but will already be used by universities and regulatory bodies within the next phase of the HAQAA initiative, due to start next year, the aim being to inculcate a culture of quality through self-assessment, thereby contributing to the provision of quality higher education in the African continent, aimed at international transparency and competitiveness.
The standards are available in the four languages of the African Union:
- French (document download)
- English (document download)
- Arabic (document download)
- Portuguese (document download)
