The practices, challenges and prospects of internal quality assurance

Until the year 2000, there were only two universities in Ethiopia. Realizing the role that higher education can play in the economic growth of the country, the current government gave due emphasis to its development. Expansion of public higher educational institutions and encouraging private providers to invest in the sector are among the major reforms made in the system. Though there is an increase in the gross enrollment due to various reforms made in the higher education system of the country, improving the quality remains a challenge. Unless this expansion is supported by sound quality assurance mechanism, it is quite difficult to achieve the intended outcome. Many scholars believe that maintaining and enhancing the quality of higher education is largely on the hands of the institutions themselves. Because of this reason the scholars highly encourage higher educational institutions to establish strong internal quality assurance mechanism within their own institutions so that they can regularly assess and ensure the quality of their own provision. This book discloses the state of internal quality assurance in one of the public universities in Ethiopia, Adama University.