INTERMEDIARY MEETING OF DAAD-DIES IDC 2013

Organized By German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

In Collaboration with the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA)

“Balancing Quality and Access in Higher Education in Africa”

PETER KWASI KODJIE Research & Communications Officer

All-Africa Students Union (AASU)

Monday 4 November, 2013 University of Professional Studies, Accra; Ghana

QUALITY VERSUS EQUITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION:

THE ROLE OF ICT-BASED LEARNING

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PRESENTATION OVERVIEW

Concept of Higher Education (HE) Quality Issues in HE Equity Issues in HE The Common Ground – Quality & Equity The Case for ICT-based Learning Concluding Remarks

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CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF HE

• Higher Education (HE) can be defined as that level of education offered after the secondary level

• HE has a positive effect on economic growth and as well as on individual employment prospects and well-being

• HE is necessary for social re-engineering • Growing evidence shows that the quality of

higher education delivered is inextricably linked to the attainment of the MDGs.

• Usually referred to as Tertiary Education

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• Tertiary education is divided into 3 tiers : Post Secondary School Level –Form a very valuable resource in any given

country, as it gives the main resource in the development of the country

University Level –Professionals with theoretical and analytical skills,

and competencies generally in application of the skills in the developmental issues / needs

Further Education –For continual education / life long learning, for up-

skilling of employees

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LEVELS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

INTRACACIES OF HIGHER EDUCATION

• Challenges to HE have increased and include:

Massification of HE Rising public demand for better performance

of HEIs Efficiency and accountability demands Limited capacity by HEIs to absorb the surging

demands Diversified modes of HE provision such ODL,

and E-Learning Rapidly changing industry trends

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QUALITY ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

• The need to regulate HE has become imperative in order to assure the quality offered and produce competitive and comparable products from the HE systems world-wide.

• It is observed that only 1/3 of African Countries have functional QA mechanisms; and where they exist, they do not always consider important areas such as training of trainers, open and distance education, and cross border education, in particular. (Source: UNESCO, 2008 New Dynamics of

Higher Education and Research: Strategies for Change and Development. Final Report of the Regional Conference on Higher Education in Africa (CRESA), Dakar, Senegal)

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QUALITY ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

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QA Defined: Quality Assurance: A systematic and continuous

attention to quality and quality improvement or enhancement

It has two (2) Components - Internal QA: Refers to the Institution’s mechanisms

for ensuring and improving its own quality - External QA: Refers to periodic monitoring of

quality of HE at institutions by an External Quality Assurance (EQA) agency or body

Ensures that HEIs meet minimum standards – Referred as Quality Controls

Provides public assurance of Quality – Accountability Promotes / Enhances Quality – Quality Improvement Assesses HEIs or programmes in systematic

progression that contributes to enhancement of the quality of the institution or programme

Quality safeguards the producer and consumer, in HE it safeguards academic integrity

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WHY QA IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Identifies the producer and consumer and hence grants confidence to both, in HE quality safeguards qualification of graduates

Allows trade or marketability, in HE cross-border education

Accreditation grants recognition by the consumer and also the product itself

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WHY QA IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Internal Drivers:

Desire to fulfil Vision and Mission of HEIs Desire to deliver promise to stakeholders. Need to meet the national requirements Need to meet our emerging challenges:

a)Large Class Sizes b)Funding c) Ranking d)Competitiveness

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WHY HEIs ENGAGE IN QA

External Drivers: Increase Mobility – Staff, Students, Research The desire to internationalize Globalization Cross-boarder recognition of Certifications Government policies such as transparency and

accountability, Increased demand for quality by knowledge end-users Increase in the population of students seeking for

Higher Education, construction of classrooms,

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WHY HEIs ENGAGE IN QA

At the Continental Level: AU's Plan for the Second Decade of Education for

Africa (2006 - 2015) Emphasizes promoting, developing and assuring

quality in African HE in all its dimensions, including developing and ratifying regional and continental qualification frameworks to facilitate mobility of students and staff.

Establishment of the African Quality Assurance

Network (AfriQAN) to implement the African Quality Rating Mechanism (AQRM).

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QA AT THE CONTINENTAL LEVEL

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 26, Paragraph 1), access to basic education is not a privilege but a basic human right, and Higher Education is supposed to be equally accessible to all by merit.

Ghana's 1992 Constitution renders this aptly

(Article 25, C) " high education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular, by the progressive introduction of free education"

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EQUITY ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Tertiary Gross Enrolment ratio for sub-Saharan Africa is only 5.6% compared 26% of East Asia and the Pacific, and 71% for North America and Western Europe. (Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2009; Global Education Digest)

To date no African Country has realized the UNESCO

defined level of 25% participation in Higher Education. On the average, African universities have a shortfall of 60% of what can be termed as excellent researchers and teachers. (Source: ACDE, 2008. Project Proposal on Establishment of the African Council for Distance Education - Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency, ACDE-QAAA)

Massification is defined in terms of the gross higher education enrolment ratio of a country, a ratio approaching 50% is considered "mass enrolment"

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EQUITY ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Who is marginalized? - The disabled - Women and Girls - The Disadvantaged The predominant pattern of higher education

in the developing world principally benefits the most affluent households, who are also the most powerful politically (Source: World Bank Higher Education Paper: The Lessons From Experience, Comments From Around The World”)

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EQUITY ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Cost-sharing with students in the way of tuition fees hits poorer households first, affecting women/girls disproportionately. (Source: World Bank Higher Education Paper: The Lessons From Experience, Comments From Around The World”)

Social Conditioning

- Children or parents from poorer households may not value education if they ultimately return to work in the household and on the farm.

- The rural student population continues to diminish, and if only those who can afford a university education go to university.

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EQUITY ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Broadening access to knowledge remains paramount in HEIs scope of work, but as important as this phenomenon is, it is destructive to produce half baked scholars who cannot compete in a globalized world

We risk churning out half baked scholars owing to the massification of HE

The expansion of higher education enrolments has failed to narrow wide disparities in the rates at which students from higher and lower income families enter – let alone complete – tertiary studies

There is evidence that HE has in some instances widened, rather than narrowed, social disparities

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EQUITY ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Internal generation of funds (IGFs) to reduce costs of HE; Career guidance and counselling services which aim to

sensitize the populace to the benefits of HE; Institutional funding methodologies that provide added

financing for the support of students from disadvantaged backgrounds;

Non-discrimination policies requiring provision for students with disabilities;

Initiatives to make higher education better adapted to the needs of non-traditional students

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POLICY ISSUES TO ADDRESS EQUITY

•in the light of the challenges of meeting the surging demands for HE, HEIs using their traditional models of instruction have proven incapable of meeting this demand without compromising quality

•Even as the HE space grows exponentially, such expansion should not self destruct quality.

•It is therefore crucial that control measures are put in place to check that even as we meet the growing demands for HE we do not overly compromise quality.

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THE COMMON GROUND, QUALITY VS EQUITY

Simply massifying HE will not address the problem of equity.

Simply strengthening quality controls will deny an incalculable percentage of the citizenry access to HE, and hence hamper socio-economic development.

The way forward is to create a viable fit between quality and equity.

We must further explore the unlimited potential of ICT-based learning if we are to provide HE that is quality and equitable.

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THE COMMON GROUND, QUALITY VS EQUITY

Much of the literature continues to portray ICT-based Learning as just making available computers to end-users.

This is a somewhat narrow which obscures the actual breadth and depth of ICT based learning.

It needs to be emphasized that ICT-based Learning is much more than just supplying computers, it is just one of the knowledge exchange activities;

a) Knowledge Creators b) End-users c) Technology Firms d) HEIs

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ICT – BASED LEARNING

Constraint Factors inhibiting efforts of HEIs to exploit ICT:

Limited budgets Low levels of private sector support Limited technological capacity Inadequate HEIs - Industry collaborations End-user skills Access to a reliable supply of electricity is a

general problem but is particularly severe in rural areas because of the difficulty of connecting to national electrical grids.

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ICT – BASED LEARNING

There is a general lack of human resource capacity to provide ICT training and equipment

Huge gaps between urban and rural areas in terms of access to ICT infrastructure

“the average African university has bandwidth capacity equivalent to a broadband residential connection available in Europe, [and] pays 50 times more for their bandwidth than their educational counterparts in the rest of the world.”

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ICT – BASED LEARNING

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HEIs have struggled to overcome these constraints, which has severely undermined the effort to modernize HE and reach the bracket outside face-to-face learning models

Benefits of ICT-based Learning a) Expanding Access to HE b) Openness and flexibility c) Lowering cost without compromising quality d) An enabler for massification of HE e) Overcoming geographical barriers

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ICT – BASED LEARNING

Bases on choices on technological possibilities rather than educational needs. (Contextualised teaching and learning needs to drive the ICT intervention, rather than the technology itself)

Compromises quality of programmes and instruction

Skewed to Social Sciences Lack of face-to-face communication inhibits

behavioral modification Stifles creativity and innovation

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CRITIQUE OF ICT – BASED LEARNING

At the Country Level: The following are illustrative of examples in progress made in ICT-based Learning:

Madagascar is establishing “ICT villages” with a digital classroom, health centre, and community ICT access.

Mozambique has community multimedia centres resulting from a merger between existing telecentres and some radio stations.

Mauritius uses a fleet of “cyber caravans” to take ICT facilities to remote areas.

Modeled after MIT's iLab, online laboratories have been adopted by Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Nigeria; Makarere University (MAK), Uganda; and the University of Dar-es-Salaam (UDSM), Tanzania; to address the acute shortage of laboratory space and equipment.

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PROGRESS; ICT – BASED LEARNING

In 2004 Parliament passed into law Ghana’s ICT for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) policy, which is currently at various stages of implementation. The first pillar addresses the role of ICT in education.

The ICT in education policy for Ghana has six broad objectives: a) Ensure that students have ICT literacy skills before coming

out of each level of education b) Provide guidelines for integrating ICT tools in all levels of

education c) Provide means of standardizing ICT resources for all schools d) Facilitate training of teachers and students in ICT e) Determine the type and level of ICT needed by schools for

teaching and administration purposes. f) Promote ICT as a learning tool in the school curriculum at all

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PROGRESS; ICT – BASED LEARNING

Institutions, systems, and stakeholders must seek to ensure that quality, equity and efficiency characterize all aspects of higher education.

- encourage partnership and collaboration in designing and developing programmes across borders

- Broad consultations - Stimulate Innovation For the purposes of leveraging ICT for HE, policy

makers should play this role with a very important but often overlooked constituency, students.

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CONCLUDING REMARKS

While it is evident that student groupings seem to have lost focus in contemporary times, we cannot write off this vital but missing link.

In many countries, students have acquired a respected place in higher education governance structures. (In Ghana, NUGS serves on the GETFund, SLTF, and other HE governing bodies)

Moving forward, we need to formulate policies with the students and not for the students

Here in Ghana NUGS was very instrumental in the establishment of the GETFund which is serving the needs of HE in an unparalleled manner

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CONCLUDING REMARKS

AASU has demonstrated often that students at African Universities and other HEIs can be a very powerful bloc. Harnessing such power to put pressure on governments and lobby the private sector will facilitate achieving a delicate balance between Quality and Equity, leveraging on the capabilities of ICT-based Learning.

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CONCLUDING REMARKS

THANK YOU!

All-Africa Students Union (AASU) State Housing Complex, P. O Box M274, Accra - Ghana

Tel/Fax: +233 (0) 302 258 484

Mobile: +233 (0) 2879028 / +233 (0) 209207555

Email: info@aasuonline.org | Website: www.aasuonline.org

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