INVITATION TO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MEDIA
WHAT: Technical Consultative Workshop on Setup of Pan-African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency.

WHEN: 13th -14th December, 2018 starting from 9:00 A.M.

WHERE: African Union Commission Headquarters, New Compound, Small Conference Hall 3

WHO: The Department of Human Resources, Science and Technology (HRST) of the African Union Commission.

WHY: The 2nd Specialized Technical Committee (STC) Meeting on Education, Science and Technology held in October 2017 requested the AU Commission to develop legal framework and organizational set-up for establishing a Pan African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency. The workshop is to create a platform for key stakeholders to discuss and critically examine the process of establishing a Continental Accreditation Agency and possible operational modalities.
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OBJECTIVES: The Workshop will have the following objectives:

To exchange experiences and views among participants on quality assurance and accreditation mechanisms in Africa.
To identify comparable practices that create basis for regional and continental harmonization in quality assurance systems.
To identify areas of collaboration between quality assurance and accreditation agencies towards harmonization at regional and continental levels; and to create basis for establishing a Continental Accreditation Agency.
To critically examine the mandate, roles and functions of the Pan-African QA and Accreditation Agency, and agree on possible operational modalities.
To spell out the specific roles of African Quality Assurance Network (AfriQAN) with respect to the Continental Accreditation Agency.
To identify relationships of the Continental Accreditation Agency to national, and regional quality assurance regulatory bodies

Participants:

Participants of the workshop will be, among others, policy makers, experts and stakeholders including the following:
Senior officials from Member States’ Ministries of Higher Education, and Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agencies;
Members of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA) Higher Education Cluster including the Association of African Universities;
Higher Education Experts from Regional Higher Education Bodies;
Representatives of Regional University Associations;
Partner International Higher Education Agencies.

Journalists are invited to cover the event.

For media enquires contact:

Mr. Stephen Kwaku Darko/ Directorate of Information and Communication, African Union Commission/ E-mail: DarkoS@africa-union.org