Academic Standards and Quality Enhancement

EDUCATION QUALITY ASSURANCE DIRECTORATE
  1. Introduction
Bule Hora University strives to assure and enhance the delivery of relevant and quality education as one of its core responsibilities. Educational Quality Assurance and Auditing Directorate was established as an autonomous organ to initiate and follow up implementation of the essential standards aimed at ensuring the quality of the teaching- learning process, research works, and community services in collaboration with the University’s concerned organs. The directorate takes a leadership and initiative role so as to assure and enhance the quality of education and supportive services of the university. It takes a lion share with regard to enabling the university to make a judgment of its performance for future enhancement of educational relevance and quality assurance through the instrumentality of periodic academic quality audit and other means.
Quality assurance is not a onetime work; rather it is a continuous activity which relies on the achievement of the mission and vision of the university at last. It needs collaborative efforts of all stakeholders, both academic and administrative staffs, of the university and the concerned organs of the country at large. It highly requires the teaching-learning process, research works, and community service provision to comply with the standards stipulated by the relevant laws and rules of the university and the country. In most cases, quality work requires the compliance of works/purposes, effective management and leadership, graduate outcomes, supply of necessary educational inputs, standardization of procedures and innovative teaching-learning process, community engagement, and finally leads to making the university competitive enough in all endeavors at national level and international aspects. Generally, quality work is the way of discharging the core roles of the university in compliance with the expected standards and finally achieving the mission and vision of the university.
Developing different standards and rules of procedure play a pivotal role in enabling the university to conduct self-quality audit at each level of its structure, and finally to identify the weaknesses and strengths it has and which needs to be rectified and enhanced respectively. Thus, the directorate is mandated to undertake any activities which are believed as contributing to the assurance and enhancement of educational quality in respect to the core roles of the university.
 
  1. Mission of the Directorate
In response to the national and international demands for quality education, the directorate aspires to make Bule Hora University competent and excellent in assuring and enhancing the quality of learning-teaching process, research works, and community services, and produce competent and disciplined graduates which the industry of the time desires to have.
  1. Vision of the Directorate
The ultimate vision of the directorate is, to create and sustain the unique nationally and internationally accredited university at the forefront in teaching-learning, research, community service, and the promotion of good governance through continuous improvement and commitment to assure and enhance the quality of these core roles.
  1. Major Objectives of the Directorate
The directorate has the following major objectives:
  • Developing and implementing quality assurance standards, guidelines, and rules of procedure that aim at assuring and enhancing the relevance and quality of the university’s core roles,
  • Mainstreaming quality assurance and enhancement issues to all sectors of the university comprehensively and working in collaboration with all the community of the university,
  • Conducting quality audit at the level of the university in respect to the core process activities (teaching-learning, research, community services, student services, etc) and support process activities (ICT, Procurement, property administration, facility/general services, human resource administration, etc) of the university,
  • Working hard to enable the university to be competent in all endeavors, both nationally and internationally, and improving the management practice of the university to its utmost exemplary,
  • Establishing good and friendly relations with sister institutions, and concerned organs of the university, HERQA, and the ministry at all.
 
  1. Core values of the Directorate
                              Collaborative Work
  • Team work for the success of the university
  • Constructive relation about the work and positive interaction across each staff
  • Integration both horizontally and vertically to carry out the work of the university
  • Friendly relation and collaboration with stakeholders
                              Quality
  • All inclusive concern about the assurance and enhancement of quality of core and support processes
  • Compliance of activities with the standards and mission and vision of the university
  • Mainstreaming quality issue to each sector of the university
  • Priority of activities in line with the mechanism to enhance and assure quality of services
  • Establishing work standards to be followed by all communities of the university
  • Auditing and testing of activities against quality standards
  • Communication of follow up mechanisms to all concerned organs
                                    Integrity
  • Commitment to the cultivation of personal character
  • Behaving with integrity both in words and actions
  • Showing respect to all concerned
  • Keeping promises and commitments
  • Demonstrating transparency and openness
  • Developing sense of honesty, accountability, and high academic and ethical standards
                                    Communication
  • Creation of the environment which will facilitate the existence of normal communication
  • Volunteering of feedback in way to develop and respect other’s dignity
  • Listening the views of others and providing timely feed back
  • Enabling listeners to explain their concern in any means possible and acceptable
                                        Credibility
  • Meeting deadlines
  • Being honesty for one’s own words
  • Verifying data through different tools
  • Investigation and report of problems
  • Rectifying weaknesses and recognizing strengths
                      Creativity
  • Cultivation of spirit of creativity in all sectors
  • Creating innovative mechanisms in daily works
  • Encouraging innovation of new ideas and procedures
  1.  Guiding Principles
  • All aspects of the university activities, academic, administrative and managerial, on-shore and off-shore, will be subject to audit and reporting
  • The directorate aspires for quality programs, courses of study, instructional materials, teaching, learning, research and continuous improvement as core processes.
  • Quality assurance methods are evidence‐based, where outcomes and feedback from stakeholders (including students, staff, employers and alumni) will provide the basis for analyses and conclusions on which improvements are planned.
  • The directorate commits itself to rigorously and continuously monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of its work processes and quality assurance procedures to ensure that they are operating in accordance with good practices, in the best interests of all stakeholders and the maintenance of academic excellence which it aspires to.
  • Evaluations (formative as well as summative) of programs, courses, instructional materials, teaching and learning effectiveness will be transparent and participatory.
  • Procedures reflect the principles of rigorous peer review, to identify areas for improvement, foster collaboration, and team spirit, exchange of best practice, and encourage an ethos of critical self-evaluation
  • Educational relevance and quality assurance must be the every ones business in the university.
  • Any quality assurance data should be utilized for improvement purpose continuously.
  • Quality should be embedded in the culture of the university at each level.
  1. Major Duties of the Directorate
  • Initiating, formulating, and facilitating the approval of the quality assurance and enhancement policies and guidelines
  • Conducting quality audit at all sectors of the university
  • Setting quality assurance mechanisms in all core process activities and supportive process activities
  • Following up the proper implementation of educational relevance and quality assurance standards on regular basis
  • Creating and implementing a system of comprehensive and continuous national and international standards of quality for continuous improvement of the university’s core roles
  • Implementing and safeguarding institutional performance assurance programs consistent with good management practice
  • Ensuring the enhancement of quality culture and continual monitoring and improvement of all quality assessment activities
  • Ensuring the dissemination of all sorts of information related to quality to all stakeholders
  • Supervising and ensuring the existence of transparent and comprehensive internal rules of procedure in every offices of the university
  • Facilitating the external quality audit activities in collaboration with the concerned organs such as HERQA, and the others
  • Establishing uniform rules of procedure by which every core process and supportive process activities of the university can be audited
  • Follow up the existence of necessary materials for launching new programs, or to shut down the existing programs
  • Follow up the provision of community services and its correlation with the research works carried by university’s fund, etc.
  1. Major Activities Carried out Since the Establishment of the Directorate
  • Different capacity building training were given to the stakeholders
  • Internal quality assurance guideline was developed and in force
  • Quality assurance, and curriculum policy were developed.
  • Students quality assurance clubs started to be established
  • First round internal and external quality audit was conducted
  • Efforts were made to mainstream quality issue to all sectors of the university
  • Self-quality audit at program and college levels were conducted each year
  • Continuous and rigorous efforts made to have qualified and competent human resource capable of delivering quality audit to the students
  • Close and frequent follow up is made with regard to the newly developed post graduate curriculum
  • Different quality audit check lists were prepared and distributed to colleges and departments
  • Uniform and comprehensive system of working in collaboration with all stakeholders is created and functional in its entirety.
Structures of the Directorate
It has a director, quality assurance higher expert, quality audit higher expert, and service quality assurance higher expert along with executive secretary and other office workers.
Motto
“Quality for excellence”
Contact person
Irana Boki (LL.B, LL.M, and PhD Student), Education Quality Assurance Directorate Director.
Email address: iranaboki982@gmail.com
Cell phone: +251910319805