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1. STATUS OF CERTIFICATION AND ACCREDITATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION OPEN AND DISTANCE AND ONLINE COURSES, PROGRAMMES AND INSTITUTIONS IN AFRICA 6th Conference on Evaluation, Certification and Accreditation of Higher Distance and Online Education America, Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania. 1

2. Presented By • Prof. Tolly.S.A. Mbwette • Professor of Environmental Engineering, CoET, UDSM & Prof. of Env. Sci. and Techn., OUT • Member ICDE Executive Committee, • Immediate Past President PAU Council, Vice Chancellor, OUT & President African Council for Distance Education (ACDE). • Honorary ICDE Professorial Chair on OER • E-mails: tsambwette@gmail.com or tsambwette@yahoo.com 2

3. PRESENTATION OUTLINE • Historical Overview of ODL IN Africa • The Role of AUC in Higher Education (HE) Delivery • The Role of AAU & AfriQAN in HE Delivery • The Role of ACDE in ODL Delivery in Africa • The Role of National Regulatory Agencies, Ministries and Delivering Institutions in Evaluation, Certification and Accreditation • The Roles of RECs in Coordination of HE & Reporting to the AU. • Use of The ACDE-QAAA & Other QA Evaluation Toolkits. 3

4. PRESENTATION OUTLINE CONTD… • Challenges Faced by National Regulatory Agencies & Professional Bodies in Accreditation of ODL & Online Programmes. • Constaints Related to Cross boarder ODL & Online Delivery in Another Country. • Some Lessons Learned • Acknowledgements. 4

5. Historical Overview of ODL in Africa • 20th June 1873 – University of The Cape of Good Hope est. An Exam agency for Oxford & Cambridge. • 1946 – Given the Role as a Distance Education university, • 1972 – Shifted to Pretoria Muckleneuk campus. • 2004 – Merger of UNISA with formet Technikon S.A. & Vista University ODL Component. • 2017 – UNISA is The Largest University in Africa with 350,551 students. • Other African ODL universities established between 1990s and 2000s. 5

6. The Role of AUC IN African HE Delivery • OAU – established on 25th May 1963, Addis Ababa. • AU – Successor to OAU, launched on 9th July 2002 in South Africa following est. in 2001. • AUC is the continental secretariat, its chairperson works with Commissioner HRST on all Educational Matters including HE. • Guiding Documents on HE – Agenda 2063, STISA 2024 and CESA 2016-2025. • Africa is split into 5 RECs – Southern, Eastern , Central, Northern and West. 6

7. The Roles of RECs in Coordination of HE & Reporting to AU • RECs Report HE Coordination to the AU through the Sector Technical Committee (STC) on Science, Education & Technology. • STC Forwards Issues of HE to The Executive Council. • Executive Council Reports to The Six Monthly Summits of Heads of Government and States at AU. • Flagship Project on establishment of an African-wide e-university. 7

8. The Role of AAU & AfriQAN in Ensuring Quality HE Delivery • AAU is a voluntary membership organization of public and private African universities. It has an observer status in AU and it assists universities to build capacity for Quality delivery. • AfriQAN is an African network set up by AAU in collaboration with the Continental Initiative on Quality Assurance (GIQA) and UNESCO with the purpose of enhancement of the quality of higher education. Members include all regulatory bodies for HE in Africa. 8

9. The Role of ACDE IN ODL Delivery in Africa • ACDE is a voluntary continental educational organisation comprising African universities and other higher education institutions which are committed to expanding access to quality education and training through open and distance learning. • It was established in 2004, its headquarters is in Nairobi, Kenya. • ACDE is a unifying body of ODL providers in Africa, its mandate is primarily to promote research, policy and quality in ODL in order to increase access 9

10. The Role of ACDE in ODL Delivery in Africa Contd… • Through the ACDE Quality Assurance Accreditation Agency (ACDE - QAAA) hosted by The National Open University of Nigeria, the toolkit and the quality assurance framework for ODL delivery are disseminated to members and non-members see link at http://www.acde-afri.org/qa/ . • ACDE has an observer status in the AU just like the AAU. ACDE has MoUs with both the AUC and the AAU. • ACDE plays a critical role in building capacity for Quality Assurance amongst the African higher education institutions delivering education through the ODL mode. 10

11. The Roles of National Regulatory Agencies, Ministries and Delivery Insitutions in Evaluation, Certification & Accreditation • In majority of the African countries, the National Regulatory Agencies are responsible for evaluation, certification and accreditation of all courses, programmes and institutions of higher education or universities and colleges. • Where a national regulatory agency is not yet established, The Ministry responsible for Higher Education or Education takes the responsibility for evaluation, certification and accreditation 11

12. The Roles of National Regulatory Agencies, Ministries and Delivery Insitutions in Evaluation, Certification & Accreditation Contd… • Accreditation of ODL or Online programmes delivered by universities or higher learning institutions follows a similar approach to the courses and programmes delivered by residential modes and hence unless the accrediting body has built capacity in ODL or Online delivery, the problems of ignorance of the modes of delivery crops up during the evaluation and accreditation process. • To ensure ODL and Online programmes are evaluated fairly, members of such evaluation teams as well as the accrediting organs have to mainstream the knowledge of such delivery modes instead of relying on the rigid QA frameworks based on the residential delivery alone. 12

13. The Roles of National Regulatory Agencies, Ministries and Delivery Insitutions in Evaluation, Certification & Accreditation Contd… • Eastern Africa – Has a comprehensive QA Framework and good capacity for peer review but to date no sub-regional ODL policy. • Southern Africa - The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has an approved Regional ODL Policy Framework (SADC, 2012) as well as a Regional Qualifications Framework abbreviated as SADCQF that recognises ODL delivery. • The Rest of the RECs (i.e. Northern, West & Central do not have sub-regional coordination of ODL delivery or ODL peer review capacity. 13

14. Use of The ACDE & Other QA Evaluation Toolkits in Africa • The ACDE Quality Assurance Toolkit was adopted by ACDE in 2014. • The role of the ACDE-QAAA (hosted by NOUN) is to disseminate the toolkit and to build capacity of any African ODL institutions to use it in preparation for any legally binding evaluation and accreditation processes that vary from one country to another. • Indeed, it appears that there is an increase in the number of courses that are now delivered in online mode, hence one may wish to review to what extent the current ACDE Toolkit embraces it. 14

15. Use of The ACDE & Other QA Evaluation Toolkits in Africa Contd… • COL has funded capacity building workshops in Africa where participants were trained in using the COL RIM QA Toolkit (COL, 2010 Revised in 2014). • Within the quality assurance area, EADTU has developed two quality assurance labels with the E-xcellence as a framework with several tools (EADTU, 2010 Revised in 2016) as well as the OpenupEd QA tools. 15

16. Use of The ACDE & Other QA Evaluation Toolkits in Africa Contd… • The author observes that capacity building in use of other Quality Assurance toolkits has not been undertaken comprehensively on the African continent. The most cost effective approach would have been to undertake it through the RECs. 16

17. Challenges Faced by National Regulatory Agencies & Professional Bodies • To date most national regulatory organs are facing the critical problem of failure to mainstream ODL and Online delivery modes in their evaluation, certification and accreditation processes. • Most universities nowadays have adopted blended mode of delivery that is neither fully residential nor a fully ODL mode, hence the evaluation, certification and accreditation instruments have to be changed to match with this new reality. • Some professional bodies cannot comprehend the modern trends of replacing some practical activities with electronic teaching and learning environments including multi-media. 17

18. Challenges Faced by National Regulatory Agencies & Professional Bodies Contd…. • Some MOOCs programmes are too liberal in terms of their admission criteria to be accredited by any regulatory organs. • Online learning is more prone to cheating during the examination process so many digital precautions have to be taken to control this. • Limited investment in modern ICT technologies that can assist to discourage or prevent cheating in examinations. 18

19. Challenges Faced by National Regulatory Agencies & Professional Bodies Contd…. • Lack of capacity of the national agencies to evaluate, accredit and certify ODL and Online programmes that do not include examinations that are often replaced by practical problem solving assignments undertaken by the learners. • Inability to recognize prior learning evidence as a basis for admission of learners into degree programmes. 19

20. Constraints Related to Crossboarder ODL & Online Delivery Contd…. • Absence of sub-regional frameworks for recognition of qualifications. • Attempts of the regulatory organ of the receiving country wishing to introduce parallel evaluation, accreditation, certification system and extra taxation despite receiving assurance of the same being done in the originating country. 20

21. Lessons Learned • Some African Governments do not recognise ODL and Online delivery modes hence the qualifications of their nationals who have graduated through such a mode are not recognised. • Some Professional organisations do not yet recognise qualifications offered in the two modes. 21

22. Lessons Learned Contd…. • Some African Governments do not recognise prior learning or open admission criteria. • There is an urgent need to build capacity of the regulatory organs in all African countries including involved Ministries in ODL and Online delivery. 22

23. Acknowledgements • I wish to acknowledge UTLP for facilitating my attendance of this conference as well as my employer The University of Dar es Salaam and The Government of The United Republic of Tanzania for granting me permission to attend this conference. 23

24. THE END I THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR ATTENTION!! 24