The Perceptions of Students Regarding Quality Improvement: Implications for Quality Assurance In Ethiopian Higher Education System

Abstract

Quality Assurance is a world-wide phenomenon that urges Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to be accountable and reflect improvement in all their activities. There are several methods to Quality Assurance, which look into at the organizational structure rather than that of individual activities. The leadership in Ethiopia, as in many other countries in the developing world, is attempting to integrate Quality Assurance into its higher education system. The primary focus in this study is on the concept of quality as fitness for purpose, internal quality assurance, and external quality assurance systems to look into the developments in the quality assurance regime in the institutions. The study primarily employed questionnaires, to collect data from graduating students of the six public and private HEIs. The study attempted to address a basic research question: What are the practices and improvements observed by students in the HEIs following HERQA’s institutional quality audits? There are two principal reasons for collecting feedback from students. The first is to enhance the students’ experience of learning and teaching and the second is to contribute to the monitoring and review of quality and standards. The emphasis here, therefore, is on quality assurance. An analysis of the data, which embraced both quantitative and qualitative, implied that the prospective graduating students in the sample institutions seemed to be unconvinced with respect to the quality improvement in regard to the different aspects of quality. HEIs should emphasize heavily on the internal quality assurance practices. The study unfolded a range of opportunities and challenges to the development of quality assurance and quality culture. The study has implication for both theoretical and practical worlds of Ethiopian HE where quality assurance is in its nascent stage and resources are limited.Key words: quality; quality assurance; external quality assurance; internal quality assurance; perceptions