Institutional Evaluations in Africa: A Joint African and European Pilot Project

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a pilot evaluation project, QA-Connect, conducted jointly by the Association of African Universities and the European University Association in 2010-12. Five universities were selected to test an institutional evaluation methodology in different national and institutional contexts. The universities were located in the following countries: Republic of Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, and Nigeria. These pilot evaluations were endorsed by the universities that were evaluated as well as by their evaluation teams and were found to be useful to institutional development, particularly to their strategic capacity and the development of their internal quality processes. Relying on bi-regional evaluation teams, the QA-Connect project used an institutional evaluation instrument that was developed in the early 1990s to answer the strategic development needs of European universities. After a brief presentation of the evaluation methodology and how it was adapted to the project, the paper seeks to answer three questions: What have been the obstacles and success factors of this pilot project? What benefits do the participating universities expect to derive from it? To what extent an instrument developed in a European context is suited to the variety of African contexts? The analysis is based on a scrutiny of the five evaluation reports, two questionnaires (to the evaluation teams and the institutions) and discussions during a post-evaluation seminar that addressed all aspects of the project.